Black on Black
Author's Note:
He twitches violently, eyes opening suddenly as though jolted awake by a current of electricity. His body aches, and there's a taste in his mouth that follows his swallows all the way down his gullet to his stomach. It's a sickness, he knows. Foreign, malaligned with the soul. It isn't supposed to be there, but it pin pricks his sudden consciousness with the deliberate thump thump thump of a herald's drum, signalling the irreversible. The inevitable.
He drags himself to his feet, doesn't stop to ponder why they are bare or why the tarred asphalt of the ground seems to rise to meet his staggering footfalls half way, but he finds himself propped up against a ledge and vomiting over the other side. The naked soles of his feet feel raw, the several steps feeling all like the mile for the sharp daggers of discomfort that radiate outwards into his toes and ankles. His knees are scraped raw from his collision with the wall, his hands a perfect mirror, skin torn in places as the rough surface of the wall he clings to finds its way inwards. Debris lodge themselves. He notices, but the thought feels far away and of little concern compared to the sheer cold.
He's naked. With bleary eyes and a stomach full of what must be rot, he takes his first look around and finds himself high, high, high up with what should have been the bustling streets of his home city far below.
He sucks in a shuddering, foul-tasting gulp of night air. He wipes his mouth with the back of one shredded hand, and it comes away black and glistening under the full moon on high. He's too high up to see just what he expelled, but he can feel something curl around his tongue and his stomach does another half-twist-gurgle as his fingers plunge to the back of his throat. He burps and extracts a single black hair, long and straight and tarred with a substance his terrified mind refuses to recognize. His eyes widen in horror as he casts it away - the wind catches it, and before he can regret his lack of sanity, it's gone.
He can hear the people below. Hear the opening and closing of shop doors, complete with the charming jingles of door bells, hear the rumbling motors of cars, the occasional gunshot, raucous laughter, the crying of women and children. There's a heavy fog that drowns the street level, but the ever present neon of the night shines through. An adult store here. A cabaret there. The hulking mass of the police station seems to tower over all, but...
No people. No signs of actual true life. He swallows roughly, feels another wave of nausea claw at his pipes. This was his city, yes, only it looked akin to the grave. The acrid stink of something long since dead drowns out what should have been the pleasant scent of hot takoyaki and nostalgic motor fumes. The noises he hears suddenly sound akin to caricature to his ears, slightly off tune and slowed, and it's as though a laugh track has enveloped his empty streets to give them the outwards appearance of life moving forwards. He stumbles again, this time backwards away from the glow of gaudy street signs, away from the superimposed alien shroud. Again, the chill bites at him, but he's shivering for an entirely different reason and he can't for the life of him make it stop or slow down to think and analyse.
The fog... follows him. Past the suspect vomit he left on the sidewalk far below, up the side of the building. It creeps with a purposeful rhythm reminiscent of the cat on the prowl for the mouse, sliding over old brick and dusted over windows. It billows like the exhalation of some great beast and with it comes the seemingly endless chill, the thump of drums and a panic unlike anything he has ever experienced before. The smell in the air, no, the hot stink is a crippling miasma that ensnares his gag reflex and as it fans out towards him in tantalizing undulations, his screaming instincts drive him forwards in a mad half scramble, hands and knees and feet clawing to get away, to get anywhere as long as it put distance between him and the unknown.
He recognizes his surroundings but there's a distortion to either memory or perception and what should be a right quickly becomes a left, and what was once five stairs melds into twenty as he finds the roof access door and wrenches it open to flee downwards. He doesn't glance backwards, can't, but he knows his path has been betrayed in blood by the sticky pat pat pat sensation he feels between the stings of his cuts where sole meets sterile tile. It dawns on him that this path feels somewhat nostalgic, this situation feels familiar, and the terror? It embraces him like an old friend, forgotten to the soul but recognized by the goose-flesh that lines his arms and back.
This building, cast in shadow and warped as it is, is the Headquarters of the Shimadagumi. He flees as though the very flames of hell nipped at his heels, passes room after familiar room. The offices of the lieutenants. The meeting room. The tiny temporary bedrooms, used by those on the run. The archive room, used to help keep the business front running smoothly. Armory, complete with row upon row of weapons lockers.
He skids to a halt at the latter, outstretched hand catching the door handle. He nearly yanks his arm clean out of the socket. The door refuses to budge, even as he throws his entire weight at it - how to open a locked door with no keyhole? He wastes invaluable seconds pondering the impossibility before him before he gives it up as a bad job - what on earth was he thinking, anyway? What would guns and blades do against a terrible, terrible fog?
He can't let it touch him. Somehow, even without having already experiencing it, he knows it would spell his end and he begs, preys that the fog out at street level isn't the same malicious entity that chases him so.
Even if it does remain steadfastly persistent, it seems to be in no rush to have him either. Either he's facing something that doesn't truly wish him harm, or he is so truly, utterly screwed. It's a grim realization. It brings a flood of cold, stinging sweat that half blinds him. He's in prime shape, he knows because that fact feels incredibly important to him, but the exhaustion starts to kick in. It's slow, at first. The combination of pain and terror is potent and slides over him like a sticky molasses, and he can feel it creep ever closer, dragging him down and sapping his energy.
These halls where he spent his childhood. These rooms where he took on his first official acts for the gumi. Hell, even his room where he became a man - all of it poisoned and oppressive and poised against him. Even the armory, of which few had free access to rejected him, and he was the one who had arranged for the security. He felt his stomach turn again and vomited mid sprint, black oil spurting between his battered fingertips as he tried to hold it in. Where he expects the chunks of whatever he had eaten last to fly behind him as he moves, instead, he holds in his outstretched palms a writhing ball of black hair that moves rapidly to encircle his wrists.
He screams and flails his arms, trying to dislodge it. It's only after slamming his fists through a window that the monstrosity comes free, cut to shreds by flying shards of glass. The noise it makes as it disappears into the shrouded abyss outside makes tears of fear run freely down his face and he thinks somewhat hysterically that the last person to make him cry had been when he was six years old and had ended with a bullet between their eyes, courtesy of the then at the time family Captain. He can't help but feel a near-irresistible pull - it whispers to him sweetly, promising release, and he drags himself from the window as the allure of the quick fall and quicker stop calls to him.
The stairwell approaches and he launches himself downwards towards street level. 9th level. 8th level. 7th. He leaves streaks of blood wherever he grabs the handrail to steady himself, and shudders to realize it stinks just as bad as the horrific mist chasing him. He skids as he approaches the 6th floor and his ankle rolls with a sickening crunch - he trips, flies down chipped steps until he lands face first on the 5th. 4 more floors to go, then it's ground level. Street level. And then...?
The answer eludes him, snatched smoke between his fingers. It can't be real, he tells himself with a hiccup. It just can't. He's gone mad. Must have. Too many drugs. Too many close calls. Too much death.
He can't bring himself to swallow after coughing up that mass of black, and between the snot, blood, tears and drool he may as well be a toddler again learning which end of the knife hurts the most first hand.
Jump. Be done with it.
The voice in his head is liquid silver saccharine, and the drop beckons him gently. There's a strange attraction to ending it then and there and it calls to him and ensnares him like a madman heeding the whisper of the glinting rail, or the urge to chase the rapidly receding tsunami current.
There's a loud hissing sound, as though air were being let into a vacuum all at once, and the distance between him and the fog closes rapidly. It's too much, his twisted ankle can't keep him ahead anymore and the nails-on-a-chalkboard realization forces his hand. There's little grace in his descent - throwing a bare leg over the handrail, hands slipping on the smooth surface as he hauls himself, he risks one last glance back to the entity and wishes immediately he hadn't. It's close. Less than a foot away. He half slips, half throws himself into free-fall, bangs an elbow with a sickening, wet crack on the way down. Looses a few nails on his left hand. His forehead collides with the corner of the stairwell and bright lights starburst through vision and mind alike.
The stubborn inbuilt want to survive and live lurches within him like a heated sickness. It's not strength he feels, more the rapid decline of ignorance stoking his refusal to let go and acknowledge his end. It can't end like this, he tells himself. It can't. Not here. Not like this. He sticks out his one remaining good arm and catches himself, fingertips scrabbling against concrete and he cracks an eye through the rushing stream of blood and confusion to see he's just above ground level. He falls the rest of the way, lands hard on one knee - it's the same leg he twisted before and he howls in agony, the sound ricocheting back up the stairwell with a hollow, sorrowful resonance. The fog drifts lazily down the same gap he jumped, slow and fattened and apparently once again in no rush to be upon him.
He drags himself to his feet, places the injured one down slowly to test the waters and is immediately rewarded with the realization that he's broken his shin in the fall. The bone hasn't pierced the skin, but there's a plump area of swelling and the flesh turns blue-purple-black before his eyes. He knows he's lucky to have not broken the same elbow he cracked on the way down, but the way it also swells with fluid bodes ill. Both may as well be grievous indeed for the blow they strike heavily upon his chances.
He limps, half hopping half dragging himself to the set of revolving doors in the lobby. The fog has slowed further, dodging his steps almost playfully, oh so close but deliberately staying an inch away as to provide the merest bright spark of hope. He barges against the revolving door with a wet thump, shoulder colliding against glass and leaving a dark smear of gore behind. It's locked. It won't move. The glass is bullet-proof. He knows because he had it installed himself. The fog has stopped, waits behind him, as though interested in any other ridiculous plan that he may try.
He gasps, pounds on the glass with a trembling hand. Hope lost. Gone. He turns to face the entity, whole body shuddering with chill, fright, pain and weakness.
The fog rears up, an almighty blanket of thick, grey inevitability. Like that, it almost looks like a figure... or three, he thinks hysterically. Blood bubbles from his mouth as he slowly sinks to his knees, pain fluttering further and further and further away. Dimmer, somehow. Like a candle on the last bit of wick in the wind. He bows his head.
The fog... pauses. Ripples and expands outwards to envelop the man in his hopeless submissive prostration.
"All your life, you have wanted for nothing. Needed for nothing. Relied upon no man. Took what you thought you deserved with a confident fist of iron that many, many learned to fear and respect. You bowed to no man. Submitted to no man."
Perhaps he thought the voice were a figment of his imagination, so horrific was it in his mind. He whimpered, forehead coming to rest at the entities' feet. He felt his consciousness begin to dim sluggishly.
"This is the first time in over one hundred attempts you did not kill yourself in fright. In hopelessness. By accident, or though intention. Over one hundred times you have faced me and found yourself lacking. This time, you survived. This time you shall know me. This time you will submit, and become envoy to my powers. My name is..."
Takasugi Masao awoke with a start, skin streaked with sweat and hair plastered to his skull. He took in a deep, shuddering breath that rattled his lungs in the silence of the night, and coughed loudly as his overenthusiastic need to draw in fresh, fresh oxygen immediately punished him. Bracketed on either side by two of his three wives, they mumbled in their slumber and reached for him. This wasn't a new occurrence. The Soutaichou was often plagued by restless dreams, but the past few months had been difficult indeed.
"Her, again?" A dry voice said from the open window. Apparently he wasn't the only one to find the concept of proper rest so taxing. His husband sat on the ledge looking out over the 1st Division, face furrowed in worry. "She at it again?"
Takasugi coughed again and drew away from the warmth of his bed. Snatching his robe from a hook on the wall, he climbed out of the window and sat next to the man. Lighting up a cigar, he leaned back against the whitewashed brickwork of the building and took in the view - the 1st Division was unusually peaceful tonight, even if it's captain was not. Drawing in a lungful of smoke, apparently quick to forget the sweetness of the untainted air, he glanced at his husband from the corner of his eye and exhaled heavily.
"Yeah."
The word sounded heavily in the air, full of remorse and a little bit of worry that most would consider uncharacteristic of the Captain. Isamu smiled and ran his fingers through his hair thoughtfully. "Mine isn't half as... well. You know. To have the same dream over, and over again..."
"Tonight. I dreamed it was the first time I connected with her properly. Gave me Shikai." Takasugi grunted, closing his eyes. "She's warning me. Preparing me."
"For what? You already have Bankai." Isamu quipped. "What horrors beyond what you've already faced does she feel the need to harass you over?"
"It'll happen soon."
Apparently not in the mood for a full conversation, Isamu sighed and relieved Takasugi of his cigar. Taking a deep puff of his own, he cocked his head. "Dare I ask what?"
"Not sure. It'll happen soon. Very soon."
"I should think so! You're Soutaichou of the Gotei 13!" Isamu laughed. It was cut short when he saw how grave his husband's expression had become.
"Soon, Isamu. Whether I'm prepared or not. Makes little difference to her."
~Fin
Author's notes: