Work Text:
Characters: Ashisogi Jizu, Kurotsuchi Mayuri
Ashisogi Jizu watches from within, whatever his master does and dares not to comment. He fears him, a little. But it was reasonable. Who does not fear the Twelfth Division Captain, anyway? The answer to that question would only be Nemu and Akon. They have their reasons as much as those who fear him have theirs...
But why was he, Ashisogi Jizu, a child? Some have asked. Sure he looks and acts as retarded and at times as manic as his owner, but isn't he supposed to be the reflection of Kurotsuchi Mayuri? Remember he is that man who upped the Shiba pyromaniac Kukaku, with his shinigami bombs? Why is he a child, one that is so fearful and so timid, a child so naive and innocent?
That child is Kurotsuchi Mayuri, the man we fear for his "cruel and sadistic ways". That is all.
Look at Ashisogi Jizu and understand what Kurotsuchi Mayuri does not know of himself. Look at his zanpaktou and understand what he fears the most, understand and reconcile the differences between him and his sword. What is within the man we fear is a child's curiosity, an overwhelming desire to know and to use whatever means to reach his aim, wanton and inconsiderate, thinking only of his own childish, if one can call it childish, desires. Inside him, there is no such thing as cruel, or evil or sadistic, all there is is want, the want to know.
He too has the child's fear of something he does not know, that's why he researches, experiments tirelessly to understand, like a bigger, over-bloated version of fear of the dark... and the cautious man that he is, Mayuri prepares for everything, because he is afraid. That must be one of the most amusing jokes of Soul Society.
And then there's his terrible tantrums, blowing up all over the places and often ending up on Nemu. These attacks reflects his childish pride, wherein he cannot accept someone who is greater than him, or his mistakes, chalking it up as one of Nemu's defects. Amusingly, he does not ever get the cruel gag that is on him. He had created her and to say that she has defects is to say that he made her incorrectly. With all his intellect, he has never come upon that.
As I have said earlier, he has no concept of right or wrong, good or bad, cruel and kind, because he is a child. And a child is a tabula rasa, a clean sheet of paper that has no marks. Unfortunately it is too late for him, and for us to write something on it. He has shielded himself from the rest of the world. He no longer allows anyone to write anything on it. All there is is a piece of paper that is cold, emotionless, filled only with facts and formulas and protocols and instructions like a computer program running over and over his mind. Makes you wonder sometimes, who wrote them there?
What could have happened on the past of this man? Who or what could have wounded him so deeply that he retreated in the world of cold numbers? What could have forced him to be unable to scribble or draw on the paper that is his life? And what is the connection of this fact to his mistrust of people that he even planted a bomb in his own sword?