Not a single color was allowed to grace the prison.
Covered by infinite shadows on a jet-black floor, multiple barriers had been set up to prevent even the faintest of light from reaching that underground jail. Those who had been given the death penalty but could not be killed due to various circumstances were sealed away in this prison of darkness. In the prison where silence would normally dominate, a man's emotionless voice resounded through the space.
“So one of the flows…has changed.”
Sosuke Aizen.
The prisoner who had spent so much time in that darkness used his incomparable perception to verify that a certain soul had been extinguished in the Soul Society. Aizen, whose body was almost entirely restrained, had guessed that a soul that had a link with a man who was one of his trusted retainers had disappeared, but his face showed no emotion.
Instead, an agreement he had come to with his retainer revived itself in his mind.
≡
✦ ✦ ✦
“Is there anything you wish for, Kaname? I will give you a token of thanks for following me as my most loyal subject. If there is something that you wish for, you may tell me.”
The memory of Aizen asking that of Kaname Tosen, his loyal retainer, revived itself in his mind.
“If you would allow it…I have one wish.”
“Oh?”
Curious to know what the man in front of him selfishly desired, Aizen lent him an ear, but what came from Kaname Tosen’s lips was something far from a reward.
“What I wish for is…a warning against a sin.”
He urged Tosen to go on with silence.
“If I commit a betrayal and become able to accept the Soul Reapers’ world… If this world, that will never achieve evolution gives me peace…at that moment, please wipe my existence from the world and leave no trace.”
Though his words seemed strange, Aizen understood what Tosen wanted and asked to confirm it, “It is true that if you stop walking your path…you might forgive the Soul Reapers. However, don’t you think that you could accept forgiving them?”
“If absoluteness exists, then you are the only one who would be so, Lord Aizen. Even the one who taught me the way of justice was also a part of the world I despise.”
“I see, so the very origin of the justice that stirs you is also the linchpin that may destroy your great cause.”
Kakyo.
When Aizen recalled the name of the woman who had been Tosen’s best friend, Tosen continued, “If I accept the Soul Reapers’ world, that means that I have disavowed my cause. At that moment, the things that I have done wouldn’t be justice, they would simply turn into slaughter.”
Gripping his hand into a fist, Tosen recalled a past he could not wipe away and spoke with effort. “If I did that…then my friend Kakyo’s death and way of being would be sullied. Not only would I be standing here after betraying her wishes, backtracking on my cause would be the same as killing her again.”
“But don’t you think she would have forgiven you, had she still been alive?”
“Yes. She likely would have. That is why, before I succumb to vice within her innate goodness now that she is no longer here, I would like the mercy of disappearing from this world.”
“Mercy, is it?”
“If my cause is a fraud, then I absolutely cannot be forgiven! Before my heart is filled with false salvation, please destroy the entirety of my konpaku. That is my wish.”
Tosen asked for something not for the sake of his great cause, but to serve his own emotions. Once Aizen understood the significance of that and Tosen’s resolve, he uttered a question that he already anticipated the answer to: “Once I stand atop heaven and create the new world, what do you intend to do?”
“That new world cannot have a prisoner to revenge like me in it. Because of that, after you come to stand atop heaven, I will kill myself to fully purify the world.”
“It seems no matter what happens, I will lose one of my trusted retainers.”
“I am very sorry. Please forget everything I’ve just said.”
Even he seemed to understand he was a prisoner of his own emotions.
Tosen seemed regretful as he apologized, and Aizen told him, “I don’t mind. These are words that originate in your true feelings.”
“What doesn’t allow me to sever myself from the justice that my friend…Kakyo…extolled, is my own inexperience.”
“I don’t mind that either. Knowing one’s own weakness is the foundation of climbing higher.”
Aizen looked at the incomplete Hogyoku he held in his hand as he continued with a daring smile, “Since evolution occasionally requires fear.”
Then, Aizen agreed to something that was absolute for the subordinate he trusted.
“Let me promise you that. Before you suffer from the plight of forgiving the Soul Reapers, I will erase you with certainty.”
≡
The darkness in Muken quivered faintly.
“Kaname, it seems that those who follow in the footsteps you left behind have walked a path to a rather entertaining place.”
After sweeping away the memories of the past, whether Aizen felt something in his chest…
…or whether his heart hadn’t been moved in the slightest…
…was unknowable…
The past that had already come to be simply melted into the infinitely spreading darkness.
“Even if they are able to surpass that corpse in the end…
“I will wait with anticipation, looking forward to the time when their journey illuminates my own path.”