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Ukitake Jushiro was sickly and fragile- this everyone knew; had been horribly ill since he was a young boy. “The Devil made away with the real Jushiro. This is a fake- that is why his hair is white. The Devil took him away and ‘cured’ him in exchange for his soul,” they spat, fear lacing their voices. Technically, they were not wrong. But only Jushiro himself knew that it was not a Devil that nested in his frail body, no. But a God.
Jushiro was not the only one who knew of the real entity in his lungs- knew the identity of Mimihagi- knew what the “Devil” in his body was. Knew that it was no Devil, but the Soul King’s Right Arm. Mimihagi, the God of Stagnation. Stillness. Mimihagi had not cured him, not fully. It kept his rib shattering, lung crushing illness at bay- kept him alive just enough to remain eternally grateful for Mimihagi’s kindness. And perhaps that was the point. The only other person who knew of Mimihagi was Kyoraku Shunsui, which was something Jushiro had decided to share on his own will. He’d brought his dearest friend to the temple at which his seizing, diminutive body with glass bones was brought to as a child due to a last ditch effort from his poor, poor family: beg the Soul King to save him. It had saved him, yes, but it cursed him all the same. Shunsui reacted just the way Jushiro expected he would. He knew Shunsui wouldn’t be afraid- knew he wouldn’t avoid Jushiro after revealing all his ugly truths. Shunsui had whispered in the silent temple with a sadness Jushiro recognized as impending heartbreak, “I won’t let you die so easily, Jushiro.” And Jushiro believed him.
And Shunsui was right. He kept his promise. Over 2,000 years and still going as strong as they could, Shunsui kept his word to his now-husband. They’d experienced loss, of course. Shunsui more than Jushiro, actually. He’d lost his brother, though they hadn’t been close. He lost his sister-in-law, Isuzu Ise, who had gifted Shunsui his dearest treasure- his dear niece, Nanao. After that, there was the “Hollowfication” incident- Yadomaru Lisa’s disappearance and alleged death. But despite it all, Shunsui remained steady for Jushiro. As steady as he could.
Jushiro mourned each loss alongside Shunsui- took their deaths as seriously as he had taken Kaien Shiba’s. They built each other up from those losses. But the Soul King, despite its “mercy,” held no empathy for the likes of mere Soul Reapers. The Soul King did not wait for grief to pass.
Sometimes Mimihagi came to Jushiro. In dreams and physically. Or what Jushiro thought was physical. Though, sometimes he could hardly tell the difference from his own mind and what was really in front of him. He never understood why Mimihagi made itself known. Mimihagi knew Jushiro prayed to it daily- knows the things Jushiro had sacrificed for it. The time, Spiritual Energy, and sanity he spent kneeled before the small carving he’d made- low, sometimes frantic whispers tumbling from his cracked lips and hands clasped in prayer, back aching from the kowtow he’d put himself in. No matter how hard Jushiro tried, he could not grasp why Mimihagi showed itself to him. Couldn’t understand why he could not differentiate his reality and his medicine-addled mind. There wasn’t a time where he wasn’t on some kind of medication. Unohana didn’t know about Mimihagi, at least to Jushiro’s knowledge. How was she supposed to know that no matter how many pills, how many crushed herbs, how much herbal tea, or how many needles he put into his body, there was no need for any of it? Jushiro took it all from her bloodied hands without question. To make her feel more human? No, she didn’t care about being human. Perhaps it was for himself. Maybe he wanted to see Mimihagi. See his savior and tormentor. And see it, he did.
There was no sound when he saw Mimihagi. Not even a shift in Spiritual Pressure. Jushiro just knew. It didn’t matter where he was- he could be in the bath, in the streets of the Seireitei. Most times, he’d be in his own quarters, hunched over in his futon, green eyes narrowed in the pitch black room, fingers curled into his own arms and drawing angry red lines, though he knew he should stop doing that. If he looked hard enough, he would see Mimihagi. Shapeless, but tangible somehow. It did not take the form of the Soul King- looked just the way it did when it had spared Jushiro from his illness all those years ago- a single, disembodied arm with an eye in the center of the hand. Shrouded in darkness, it blended into the walls, making the entire room feel as if it were swallowing Jushiro whole. It never moved, never spoke, only watched with its single eye, unblinking and statuesque in its silence. Jushiro blinked on those nights- rubbed at his eyes to make it go away, though he knew it would not listen to him. Sometimes he attempted to meditate- close his eyes and control his breathing, though it never worked. He was always interrupted by the cursed itch in his throat. His coughs began deep in his chest where he swore he could feel Mimihagi wriggling around and toying with his organs. Jushiro’s coughs rattled his bones and made his hands shake, eyes tearing up with the force of it all. His body would give in soon enough, hacking up blood and mucous with every heave. He’d open his eyes and scan the room for the deity when he was through, face drenched with tears, sweat, and blood pouring down his cheeks and chin as he whipped his head around. When he found no trace, he never believed that Mimihagi was gone. He’d stopped believing he was ever truly alone. On those nights, he would scramble out of bed and search like a madman. He certainly looked like one, if the worried (horrified) look on Rukia Kuchiki, or Kiyone and Sentaro’s faces said anything when they found Jushiro wide-eyed and frantic, bare-chested and panting in the middle of the room with shaking, bloody hands and snow white hair stuck to his damp back, neck, and face that were drained of all color. They’d scan Jushiro with pity in their eyes, then sadness as they took in the scattered medicines, shattered glasses and bowls that dug into the bare skin of his pale feet. Jushiro’s poor subordinates would look at the overturned furniture, low tables splintered and shoji screens busted through and crushed through his own slip up in Spiritual Pressure. Jushiro’s precious bonsai trees were destroyed, the carp in the pond outside dead from the impact of the spike in Spiritual Pressure, floating to the surface with empty eyes that Jushiro swore looked like the very presence that had caused this mess. They, at the very least, at Jushiro’s request, did not alert Yamamoto.
Unfortunately, Kyoraku Shunsui was a witness to many of these episodes as well. He never understood why Jushiro kept all of the medicine he received from Unohana and all sorts of well-wishers and self-proclaimed “miracle workers,” though he suspected it was because Jushiro took them to trick himself into thinking that actually taking them would “fix” him. So that he didn’t need to have that…that thing inside him anymore. Shunsui was always divided about Mimihagi. Naturally, he was eternally grateful that it had chosen to save Jushiro from a far too early death- and in turn, selfishly enough, a much lonelier fate for Shunsui. But at the very same time, he hated Mimihagi with every inch of his large body. He hated the way it made Jushiro stare at corners with suspicion in his emerald eyes. Hated how anxious it made Jushiro late at night when he could not sleep. “Jushiro, lie down, my love,” Shunsui would whisper to his dazed husband, his voice deep and scratchy with sleep as he sat up in bed to brush a strand of white, silken hair behind a pallid ear, his thumb tracing a high, eternally sunken cheekbone. Jushiro would merely shake his head and dig his fingers into his arms further. Shunsui was always at a loss when Jushiro got like this- wordless and watchful for something that wasn’t there. He’d only narrowly avoided a syringe to the head once when Jushiro had a panicked fit, screaming himself raw at the dead of night when he’d sworn he’d seen Mimihagi. Kyoraku Shunsui hated the Right Arm of the Soul King for the things it made Jushiro see and feel. He’d catch Jushiro on his worst days, huddled in the corner of his Ugendo, eyes wide open and red-rimmed, the sides of his nails raw and red as well as the sides of his neck and the skin on the back of his hands- his own dried blood caked beneath his nails. Jushiro muttered nonsense to himself- maybe to Mimihagi. And Shunsui listened. Sat with Jushiro at a safe distance away until his pale lover snapped out of it enough for the clarity to return to his eyes.
The worst was when Jushiro had nightmares- entirely too frequent for both his and Shunsui’s taste. He would toss and turn, cry out and cough into the air- allowing more oxygen to scratch at his throat like sandpaper against the sensitive skin of someone’s neck. He’d sometimes wake up to Shunsui’s worried, bearded face looking down at him with tender grey eyes, muttering quiet comforts as he swiped away at the blood that had nearly choked Jushiro when he slept. Not long after that, Jushiro would typically end up vomiting, mainly his own body convincing himself that he needed to in order to rid himself from the God that burrowed itself into the cramped space of his intestines. He could never properly bring himself to explain or describe the extent of these night terrors to his husband, who he knew only wished for Jushiro’s peace of mind. Jushiro never could tell him what he saw- what he was unable to forget. Couldn’t properly describe the way it felt when Mimihagi, in all its writhing, shadowed glory crawled out of his spine like a moth from its cocoon, meconium dripping down his back and staining his hair a deep red- how he felt the way his ribs snapped under the pressure, spine shattering and innards shifting and bursting to make room for the deity beneath his skin that wanted to be free from its host. Jushiro never wanted to tell his dear, concerned husband how it felt to feel Mimihagi in his head, wrapping its bodiless hand around his brain and his eyes, nose, and mouth, helpless against his choking savior that clawed at Jushiro’s skin until he begged and pleaded for mercy once more- the way his family had done nearly 2,000 years ago. Jushiro would never willingly look Kyoraku Shunsui in the eyes and describe to him how he would see himself curled up and lifeless on the ground, untouched by any sort of flora as if nature itself wanted nothing to do with the Right Hand of the Soul King. He saw himself, naked but wrapped in thick, black veins that crushed his bones with how tight it weaved itself into his skin. Saw the way his eyes bulged out of his own dead skull- wide and unseeing, making room for the parasite that was Mimihagi that slithered out from his mouth, nostrils, ears, and eyes. Shunsui would never be allowed to know, no matter how much Jushiro loved him, how Jushiro had seen himself in those dreams, looking down on himself like a spectator to his inevitable fate, feeling that pull again- the invisible strings wrapped tightly around his wrists that made him place his hands around his own neck, using what little physical strength he had to wrench the remaining life out of his dream self. “Put myself out of my own misery,” he’d think with bitter amusement.
Shunsui never pushed far, and knew Jushiro had a limit that had been breached before. He’d once had to pry a sleeping Jushiro’s hands away from his own throat- swearing that from the corner of his eye he’d seen the whisper of divine shadow sneak away into the floor. Instead of probing the way he knew he should, Shunsui merely held Jushiro upright and held him as wave upon wave of sick washed over his shaking angel of a husband and best friend. He simply rubbed Jushiro’s back, ignoring the knobs of his spine and the protrusion of his ribs as he hunched over, whispering to his love to breathe slowly and trust in him. That it would all be okay. Jushiro wanted to believe him- truly. With every ill inch of his nearly emaciated body, he wanted to believe the Eighth Division Captain. He wanted to believe that he would be okay eventually, that one day in the future, he would be.
Jushiro couldn’t wait for that day. The day that the Soul King needs its Right Arm to return to its rightful place- leave Jushiro be, leave his body with such force that his teeth are pushed out, bones twisted into powder and viscera squashed into paste. But Jushiro wouldn’t mind because it meant he no longer had to worship a God who only used him like a tick filling up on a lamb’s blood before detaching itself like nothing had ever happened. Jushiro didn’t know if he ever meant anything to Mimihagi- didn’t want to know. Because if this agony was the Soul King’s affection, he did not want it.
When that glorious day finally came, Jushiro was, of course, heartbroken to say his goodbyes. Didn’t even get a proper goodbye from his husband, who did not have the heart to watch his lover of so long walk away to his own doom. “Be careful,” Shunsui had called over his shoulder. “I’ll meet up with you later,” he said, knowing full well his husband was walking towards not death, but to fulfill his life’s purpose- to carry the parasite that was Mimihagi until it was ready to discard him. He’d faced Rukia, of course. Had to use his own foolish words against her. “There are two types of battles,” he told her, though he wasn’t quite convinced. But it was enough to convince his dear Lieutenant to let him go- let him free himself from the agony and horrors he’d carried himself through for over two millennia.
And so Ukitake Jushiro, proud Captain of the 13th Division of the Gotei 13, husband to
the newly appointed Head Captain, Kyoraku Shunsui, “son” of the former Head Captain, Genryusai Yamamoto Shigekuni, and “father” to Rukia Kuchiki, willingly walked away to where Mimihagi was pulling him, leading him to the center of the lab by an uncharacteristically peaceful, yet eager hand around his throat.