Disclaimer: You all know the drill. I do not own Bleach or any related official material.

This fanfic is dedicated to Shades of Green. For being brilliant, inspiring, and a major shipper of this pairing. xD

Influence

It would appear that the so-called state of "calm before the storm" was more than just proverbial. This had seemed like such an ordinary day that even hearing her created a sudden pause in his writing, and he looked up from his papers. Before he noticed it, the pen slipped out of his hand and rolled away on the surface of the kanji-stained sheet. He allowed it to, distracted.

"…Aizen-taichou… please let me… help with your work…"

When you don't have a purpose, it is easy for those who do to create one for you. That was what her innocent mumblings made him think of. The source of his distraction, dragging behind it many other thoughts of the approaching events only he knew of.

He didn't bother to reply. He knew that she would be fast asleep again in only a matter of two seconds after her offer, curled up in that armchair as she was, with the blanket his own hands had draped around her frail form. She clung to it with all the strength of her will, clutched the fabric with her hands, all just because he had touched it. Because her captain had touched it. That was all it took for her to feel safe.

But safety was an ideal condition, never attained in truth, but only a semblance that one could buy through either distance or closeness, in different ways. And Hinamori's even came very cheap, only needing her to trust the one person she looked up to the most. The Aizen that wasn't him at all.

In essence.

It was an unwritten rule, and a man like Aizen, playing the game he was so tangled in, knew it for that much. The reason people were able to identify the personality traits of others was that they also possessed the same. It wasn't actual traits that they identified, but only their own tailored interpretation. One individual noticed something in another that made him think of a personal experience. That consequently led to the misinterpretation that two people could share the same values, when in fact there was only the capacity to relate. Boundaries were fragile things when it came to concepts.

Of course, to all rules there were exceptions, and in this case people whose minds were trained specifically to decipher the behaviors of others. People who didn't compare to their own selves, but more rather by reporting to well-established patterns. Those who refused to speculate further than the boundaries of science and fact permitted.

But Hinamori Momo was not such a person. In fact, she was furthest away from it.

No, Hinamori was only what Aizen had shaped her into. Her captain himself was, to her, no more than an illusion, implanted into her mind by time, habit, and that tendency to read others in a personal way. Of all those who knew him, though many were in similar situations, Hinamori was the only one so anchored in that substitute reality that she would forever remain tangled in it. She would deny what facts others might still discover with every fiber of her being, if they differed with how she saw him.

Aizen was pleased with that. In a way it was, out of everything he had slowly built so far, his best work. Because it was finished. He could tell her right now, right here, that he cared nothing for Soul Society, and she would think he was joking. He could paint the picture of his betrayal in front of her eyes with his own hands, and she would name it a fake, nothing but a lie. Anyone might, at first, should he do nothing to demonstrate his claims. But the beauty in Hinamori, the thing that set her apart from the crowd was that she would never believe it, no matter how many times he might repeat it, how serious he might look, or what proof he might bring as support.

It was all because she, unknowingly, had been the real creator of the illusion. Aizen was nothing but the shadow king. He would live in an illusion too, were he to maintain that he was the only one shaping pieces of that fantasy. Or, for that matter, if he would claim he had anticipated such a turn, known that she would contribute so much. She said that her only dream was to be of use to him. And she never got to know to what an incredible extent she lived that dream already.

Because in every bit of the Aizen that Soul Society knew, there was also a little of Hinamori.

Starting with these very glasses, which, as though resonating with his thoughts, slipped off his nose that very moment. It wasn't difficult to catch them, keep the room silent enough to still hear Hinamori's light breathing. It reminded him of that time she had been stubborn and learned that kidou all alone, only to be able to fix his glasses herself. In some ways, figuratively, it was safe to say that Hinamori had poured a piece of her heart into that object.

The truth was he had wanted to hold those glasses, be conscious of their material weight at the same time as contemplating their significance beyond that. This pair of glasses was what one would call unnecessary. He didn't need them. Few were aware of the fact, for now, but he could see very well without them. In fact, they wouldn't even help a real sight deficiency at all, since the only purpose they were designed for was to keep up an appearance. They were just another thing he could soon discard.

His fukutaichou herself fit in that very same category of expendable things. That was all. And yet, instead of writing, he still sat there, looking at her. Loyal, dedicated Hinamori, so far beyond simple naiveté. Harmless, yet the only factor that had gone and overstepped its boundaries within his plan. If so, could he really be as sure of her as he had thought?

There was no real answer, and he was a very calculated person. There was no room for uncertainties in calculus, so they needed to be eliminated. Mathematically, she needed to be eliminated. When he would shed this intricate mask, for not needing it anymore, she wouldn't be there to see. Dead already, but in a way only then would he be killing her.

Perhaps he was going out of his way, like Gin and Kaname thought. But he disagreed. And at the very least, he owed to treat her differently from the rest, do more than just leave her behind. If Hinamori couldn't live without him, then she shouldn't. It was best for her to die before her dream did.

She would hold a special role until the very end. These glasses, he promised her, will be the final piece.