Bleach: The Forgotten Captain - The Memoirs of Akari Miyazaki

Chapter 25: The Power of the White Blade

Hello Readers! These last three chapters are going to be the finale of my little Fanfic. I really really hope you enjoyed it :3 Leave me a little <3 if you did. Thanks to everyone joining Akaris journey, it's an honor for me to have anyone read my stuff at all. 

Sending love to all of you guys xoxo

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The world around me spun, and it took a moment for me to realize what had happened. I lay on the ground, right at the feet of my enemy.

My sword lay beside me, reverted to its Shikai form, and Aizen ran a hand over his chest. He chuckled, gazing at me with a mix of triumph and something else. Was it disappointment?

Had Aizen hoped that I would kill him?

I attempted to rise, but my body was so weak that I immediately gasped for breath. My energies were depleted as never before in my life. What had just happened? What had I done?

My gaze flickered around. Gin lay exhausted on the ground, Rangiku knelt beside him, clutching a bleeding wound. Yamachi supported Byakuya, whose leg dangled limply.

Kisuke stood upright, but even he was panting, and I could tell from his expression that he had little energy left.

Was this it?

Had I squandered the one chance my friends had fought to give me just because I couldn't bear the suffering any longer? Why had my fighting spirit deserted me precisely in this one final moment? I needed only to hold onto my anger for a moment longer to have killed Aizen. Why was I incapable of that?

"What has killing ever brought us?" a voice whispered in my mind. Aizen raised his sword, and I tried to move away from it, but I could hardly move. I glanced at Kisuke out of the corner of my eye, but he was too slow.

"What has not killing brought me now?" I asked the voice in my head. Had I not just forfeited my life, as well as the lives of all my friends and the fate of our world?

Aizen raised the sword, laughter poured from his mouth, and I cast a look at Kisuke. Even though his face was filled with horror, I wanted to see him when I died.

"Sosuke?"

Aizen paused. I looked up at him, and his eyes widened in shock. His sword hung in the air above me, and Kisuke stumbled to my side, pulling me to my feet.

Aizen turned slowly, and now I, too, noticed someone standing behind him.

"Sosuke, where are we?" the voice of a young girl with pink hair trembled. Her hands clenched the hem of her clothing.

"What happened to your face, Sosuke? Where are the others? What's going on?"

"S-Sara?"

"What's happening here?" Kisuke whispered to me, and I squeezed his arm.

"What kind of trick is this?" Aizen asked, his voice a mix of anger and desperation.

But I began to understand.

"That's what I saw in you, Sosuke," I said, and his furious gaze met mine.

"I saw your Reiatsu, the Hogyoku, and something else. An energy that didn't belong to you or the Hogyoku. It was a trace of Sara's Reiatsu, which clung to you at the moment of her death. The only place where she could find refuge from complete obliteration: inside your soul. She... she was with you all that time."

Aizen's eyes widened.

"I wanted so desperately for the killing to stop. I wanted so badly to live at last... I had never seen this white blade before; I didn't know where it came from, but obviously, it's the opposite of the black blade. It doesn't destroy; it creates."