Work Text:
new world order
- orihime inoue
- yasutora sado
- ishida uryū
- kurosaki ichigo
the sky princess
death and destruction have never sat well with her.
everywhere she looks, she sees the dying and disintegrating souls that have fought and died for soul society, the screams and the smoke rising from once proud buildings. everywhere she looks, she sees death.
year after year, it’s the same— someone needs rescuing, someone else needs help— and she gives it willingly, as long as her friends are by her side. this time is no different, the Quincy uprising as brutal and beautiful in turns like Hitsugaya’s ice sculptures, all white and shining and promising false peace.
she wonders: I know I want to help people; but why?
another soldier to be healed, another broken face to look upon. even the sky princess must have had reservations, must have doubted herself at some point?
she wonders: how many more of Soul Society’s mistakes will we have to fix?
the crimson tiger
he was nothing without this power, and he never wants to become nothing ever again.
the feeling of emptiness, like something lost but never found— the feeling of being unwanted, unwatched.
in some ways, these fights have always been an acknowledgement of his debt to Ichigo, having his back when no one is there, just like he did for him all those years ago. (never let it be said that Yasutora Sado forgets good deeds done for him.)
and in other ways, these fights are almost like a release of sorts, his younger fighter self coming out to play in a game with considerably higher stakes and barely any rewards, bruised knuckles, bloody grin.
one thing is certain: he will never stop fighting Ichigo’s battles.
the white knight
he had a dream once: dressed in blackened armour, a white cape around his neck. he woke up, and laughed.
he has never had any pretensions of becoming the hero. heroes are more like tragedies, he thinks, all that glory and gore for nothing, looking back only to see that your victory has indeed come at a Pyrrhic price.
the role that suits him best: aloof, cold and detached; after all, he cannot be a hero when he has nothing in common with the people he’s saving, no need to scream with them because he can’t really feel their pain.
but even here, standing amidst all the white and glaze of the cathedral, this is something that a hero would do (and maybe, this is what he has wanted all along).
he can’t stay in Kurosaki’s shadow forever, after all.
the red masque
you are everything and nothing at the same time. nothing without your friends. nothing without your past. nothing without your power, your soul, every moment of your life in a series of events culminating to this one.
induction into the hall of heroes is not without bloodshed, or regret, but he has no time to look back and count his losses— for him there is only forward, forward, forward, alone.
the last battle will be a sacrifice, the possible destruction of everything he has ever known, or the beginning of a new world order that he— he and all of his friends will pioneer.
“… and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”