[All is quiet when night falls - beyond the excitement of the day and the subsequent saving of the boys, life continued on. Even though one of their number would be randomly executed tomorrow, no one seems to really grasp it - and as the evening falls, the boys' well wishers and vigilant hangers on slowly leave. Ichigo, for his part, falls unconscious sometime after 12 pm - unable to keep awake any longer.
It's late into the night when the whimpers start - Ichigo's hands clutch at the bed, knuckles turning white, body tensing hard enough to send shoots of pain running through his sleeping form. They start to intensify, turning into low groans as his head swivels back and forth, teeth clenched as his dreams themselves rocket up from unpleasantness to outright nightmares:
The feeling of ulquiorra's tail around his neck, as his broken body limply hangs there, the horrible power for the cero that will blast out his heart collecting at his chest. Lying on the ground, dying, as the worlds begin to merge and life itself comes to an end, stillness and emptiness taking over. The sound of Yhwach's horrible laughter as it rings in his ears, lying in a powerless heap on the floor, Orihime bleeding out nearby. Coming home to the clinic, finding the bodies of his sisters and his father torn to pieces in the living room. Ginjou's sword in his chest, taking away the fullbring he'd worked so hard to achieve, knowing that he was now helpless to save his friends and family from Tsukishima's power. His town being destroyed in front of his eyes, all the people he knows and loves having their very souls destroyed in order to make the King's Key. Aizen, standing in front of them in his final form, his power so overwhelming that he can't hope to match it, even though he's worked so hard, come so far. Feeling his friend's reiatsus all wink out, fear lancing through his body as he can't feel a trace of them no matter how hard he strains, finding their bodies torn apart, their eyes all open in shock and horror. His mother's body on top of him, still and growing cold, the summer rain pelting through his face and going into his eyes, hiding the tears spilling down his cheeks.
Akira, with his hand pinned to the door, the blade from the machine swinging down - and he's just a few steps behind, helplessly watching as as the steel bites into his neck and his body slumps, his head falling to the ground -
He's screaming halfway into it, muscles clenched so tightly that he threatens to pop his stitches before the night is over, tears beginning to fall from his one good eye while the bandage on the left side of his face grows faintly wet - the blow only destroyed his eye, not his tear ducts - crying out in-between screams, an unintelligible mixture of desperate pleas and requests to stop, names coming up to the surface:
Mom. Inoue. Chad. Rukia. Renji. Ishida. Akira-]
NO!!
[At the crescendo of it all, his eye snaps open - and he realizes he's awake, covered in fear sweat, breathing hard and trembling, the sensation of pain lancing into his conscious mind as his wounds complain from the beating he just put them through.]
..Haah...Haah...Nngh-
[All he can hope is that he didn't wake Akira up, somehow.]
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