Post by Thalia Kastel on Sept 14, 2015 9:48:26 GMT -5
Is true freedom control of your world, or merely control of yourself? Is it the ability to react to your mistakes, or merely predict their outcome? As a warrior he used to say that anything his katana could reach was under his control. And there were even times as a scientist where he had thought he'd managed to extend his reach as far as he could observe. And yet there the proud shinigami stood, weaponless and blind, his zanpaktou traded in for a red silk blindfold. His eyes finally opened, any delusions he had about freedom dashed by his own hubris.
"We'll that's different..."
The dark room stayed just barely lit by the eerie glow of a shining blue sphere that towered over the man in the white kimono. The bubble floated about two feet off the ground, a wave of energy flowing through it, ripples endlessly colliding up and down its otherwise steady surface. The occasional shadow of something moving inside gave away the vaguest sign of life in the otherwise stable barrier.
"Would you be so kind as to be my eyes tonight, hollow-san?"
The room remained quiet, Kionchi's hand on the sphere. There were two worlds in that room that night, one overlapping the other like a parasite waiting to be plucked from its more dominant host. One the domain of the King of Las Noches, the other that sphere Kionchi had used to catch his would-be assailant. And just as everything in the castle belonged to the King, so to was everything in that sphere under Kionchi's jurisdiction. Freedom, as it happened, was inherently tied to control over one's world. Which, for a shinigami, meant control over one's spiritual presence. And yet Kionchi had never seen his reishi like this before, that blue glow an alien and offensive hue. Of course, his eyes closed since his awakening, he couldn't be certain that the colors shifting vaguely around in his head even corresponded to what anyone else would see. Thus he had to ask his own captive, confirm his cage's strange azure glow, and only then could he be bothered to investigate why the aura of his kido would be the hollow's color instead of his own.
"Scream all you want, I'm the only one who can hear you." His voice was getting noticeablly irritated, the hollow clearly not cooperating. "I just need to know what color this barrier is. And if your not willing to play along, I have no reason to keep you around."
A smile swept across his face as the mad dance of shadows suddenly went still, the hollow going completely silent. He had never tortured another soul like this before, all for the sake of his own morbid curiosity. Oh, sure, he had done far worse, for far less productive endeavors even, but never without Tsukuyomi and her amnesiac blessing. Never without the joy of knowing this experience was his to hold onto and treasure. Maybe that's all freedom was: the ability to take responsibility for ones actions and bear the burdens of their own decisions. The hollow had chosen to devour the shinigami and Kionchi had decided to use the hollow as a guinea pig, nothing more and nothing less. Ethics and morals and values and vows were all painful distractions he had used for years to stifle his potential, their empty promises of virtue and inner-peace long since broken. After all, we only deserve as much freedom as we are willing to take for ourselves.
And Kionchi was relishing this new found freedom.
WC: 593; GP: 11; TGP: 11