Takes place six months after the Deicide Arc.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I need to."

Two old friends walked through the halls of the Muken, towards a special cell that contained the most dangerous prisoner in Soul Society.

Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro stopped in front of the door to their intended destination, Lieutenant Hinamori Momo standing next to him.

"I'll be right behind you," Hitsugaya said as he reached for the door handle.

"Thank you, Shiro-chan."

"Do me a favor, please, and don't call me that in front of him."

A small smile curved Hinamori's lips.

"Okay, Hitsugaya-kun."

A sigh came from the captain. "I guess that's as good as we're ever going to get."

All humor disappeared as Hitsugaya opened the door to the cell.

The two Shinigami walked inside to see a row of metal bars, and beyond that barrier sat Aizen Sosuke.

Hinamori looked at the man she had idolized for years. She remembered how good, how kind, how strong he first seemed. Even after the betrayal, she remembered thinking how strong and powerful he had looked over Karakura, if no longer benevolent. Now, Aizen was almost completely wrapped up in black, save for his left eye and mouth that had been left uncovered only for the duration of their visit. He seemed almost helpless, if not for the dangerous, condescending look in the man's eye.

"What a pleasant surprise, Hinamori-kun, Hitsugaya-taicho," came the smooth greeting from the prisoner.

A small, traitorous part of her heart still swooned when he spoke. Hinamori banished that voice from her head and focused on the man in front of her.

"Hello, Aizen," she replied, deliberately not using his former title.

"No suffix? My, my, you've become quite rude in my absence. What has happened to your manners?"

"Honorifics imply that the bearer has honor, Aizen. I've just come to realize that you have none."

A smug smile familiar to Hitsugaya appeared on Aizen's face.

"How amusing. You accuse me of having no honor? It is very fascinating to hear such a thing from you, Hinamori-kun. You, who still hold me in admiration in your heart? Don't try to deny it; I can see it in your eyes. How does it feel, Hinamori-kun, to know that you are the laughingstock of the Seireitei for your hopeless love for me? How does it feel to know that everyone mocks you for your worship of the great Aizen-taicho? I, of course, never minded; after all, that was part of the reason I chose you as my lieutenant. I will commend you on this, Hinamori-kun: you were by far the easiest pawn to manipulate and the easiest to dispose of. And yet you still hungered after my presence. You are quite deserving of the mockery your peers give you; you are by far the most pathetic and pitiful soul I have ever had the pleasure of using."

Through Aizen's monologue, his visitors stood stock still.

Hitsugaya was wishing that they had allowed Hyorinmaru inside, because he was itching to have Aizen's body impaled on his blade. But he restrained himself from attacking, and kept a close eye on his friend's reaction. He could not see her face from behind her, but she was not moving.

Bringing her down here was a risk, but she had insisted on coming face to face with her former captain. Hitsugaya was there both as moral support and to make sure that Aizen did not break Hinamori's mind further.

Hyorinmaru whispered a warning to wait, and have faith in his friend. Reluctantly, Hitsugaya agreed.

Finally, she said, "Thank you, Aizen."

The prisoner blinked and his smile slipped just for a moment, and Hitsugaya, too, was confused.

Hinamori's response to Aizen's attempt at mind-screwing did not sound like a broken girl, nor did it sound like a hopeless admirer speaking with the man she once called her hero.

"For what, Hinamori-kun?" Aizen asked.

"You're right; even when I had accepted you as an enemy, even after you tried to kill me and then made Hitsugaya-kun stab me, I still felt like I loved you. But do you know why? It was because I never saw the real you. The reason I came down here, Aizen, was to see for myself once and for all who you really are.

"And now that I know, I can walk away from you and never look back. I can go back to my life whole and happy, and never again think of you except as a monster."

Aizen's smug smile grew for a moment.

"Oh, congratulations, Hinamori-kun," he said, insincerity dripping from his polite tone. Hitsugaya was sure that if his hands were still free, they would be clapping mockingly. He was also quite sure that he would have begun another attempt to get into her head, if he were not interrupted by…

"Shut up! I'm not finished yet!"

Both men blinked in surprise at her uncharacteristic snarl, and Aizen's smirk slipped once more.

"I know you don't care what I'm going to do from now on, but I certainly know you care about what's going to happen to you."

"Why should I care? Soul Society can do nothing more to me than they have already; the Central Forty-Six are afraid to kill me because I might reincarnate into another threat in the world of the living."

"But that's exactly what's going to happen to you, Aizen: nothing."

Once again, Aizen blinked, this time in confusion.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

Hinamori was normally not a vindictive woman. But Aizen had been a man she had looked up to for years, and he had betrayed her in the worst possible way. Her former captain almost killed her and her closest friend, made war on Soul Society, attempted to kill a hundred thousand souls, and then tricked Hitsugaya into almost killing her. She had had enough, and she was going to thoroughly enjoy what she was going to do next.

"Think about it: you've been sentenced for twenty thousand years in this little cell, unable to move, and after we leave, unable to see, speak, or hear. Lieutenant Kurotsuchi informed me in full of everything that will and will not happen to you in here. In short, you will go insane. With nothing to do, the boredom will drive you out of your mind, and the loneliness will only make the madness take you sooner. Being wrapped up as you are will make your senses go numb. Since they've sealed away all your spiritual energy, you don't need to eat and therefore will lose even your sense of taste. Haven't you noticed that your eyesight has dimmed since the last time you were allowed to see?"

Aizen had indeed noticed that his vision was not as clear as it had been at the trial, but he was not going to tell Hinamori that. However, she didn't need him to confirm it.

"And kept in this trapped position completely immobile will atrophy your muscles, so if the wardens or the Central Forty-Six finally decide to let you stand up, you won't be able to because your legs can no longer support your weight.

"Everyone knows that you are not going to live out all twenty thousand years of your sentence. Instead, you'll wither away, blind, dumb, and mute. That mind that you're so proud of will erode and decay until you are nothing but an empty husk.

"You sought godhood, but now you'll become the embodiment of entropy because of your ambition. Letting Kurosaki kill you would have been a much more merciful fate, don't you think?"

Aizen's smile was no longer present on his face.

"So cherish the memory of this 'pitiful and pathetic' girl, Aizen. Because while I'm outside and free and cheerfully forgetting your existence, you'll be in here wasting away, desperately clinging to this moment because it will be the last thing you will ever see!"

Finally finished, Hinamori turned around and walked out of the cell, her white-haired friend right after her. She never looked back. She was not even tempted to. She had gotten what she had come for: the elimination of any remaining affection she had toward Aizen. She had let off more emotion than she had intended, but at least she had kept her head and walked out with her chin held high. It definitely counted as a victory.

Hitsugaya locked the door again, and the two friends made their way out of Maggot's Nest.

After their exit from the prison, Hinamori broke the silence, "Thank you for being there with me, Shiro-chan."

Hitsugaya decided to let the old nickname slide this one time

"You're welcome. How do you feel, now that you've faced him?"

She paused before answering, gathering her words.

"It's like I've put a burden off my shoulders," she said slowly, "I feel freer, happier. I can't really describe it better than that."

"I'm glad," Hitsugaya smiled, and then it transformed into a smug smirk, "I think you actually scared him with that speech."

She blushed and replied, "I just told him the truth."

"And I couldn't have said it better myself. And you enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"Oh, maybe more than a little," she replied primly.

Hitsugaya's smirk widened.

"Come on, I'll get you some peaches."

"Thank you, Shiro-chan."

"Hitsugaya-taicho."

Author's Note: I wrote this because I realized that Hinamori never really had closure with Aizen. The last time she really interacted with him, he had just come back from the dead, embraced her, and then said in a gentle tone, "I'm sorry," before stabbing her. So I think it's somewhat understandable how she can be in denial about the truth of Aizen's heart. And in Karakura, she doesn't see Aizen except from a distance, so she never really sees for herself that he looked down on her as nothing but a pawn.

Oh, and I really wanted to give her a Shut Up, Hannibal! moment.

Hinamori is also the channel I used in this fic on how and why Aizen was imprisoned instead of outright executed. Yes, what Hinamori said about the senses and the effects of loneliness are true. Psychologists have done studies on how people react when alone and/or deprived of their senses. When kept deprived of their sense of touch, people will go insane.

Assuming that Kubo doesn't somehow let him out of prison before he ends the series, Aizen will indeed spend the rest of his life withering away just as Hinamori predicts here.

For another oneshot on Aizen's punishment in his cell, I highly recommend going to ncfan's collection of drabbles, "Time in Seconds," and reading chapter 233, "Forever Needs to Hurry."