Uryuu can’t quite focus on whatever Yhwach is saying, too distracted by the way the man’s power is crawling through his veins, slow and sticky like cold syrup. It feels gross, feels invasive, and it takes everything in his power to not react to it, to not fight back, to just let it happen—

Distantly, he catches something from Yhwach about being a successor, whatever that means, even as the man’s cold-gross-itchy power finally reaches his soul, finally digs in, seeping through cracks Uryuu didn’t even know were there in order to tug-yank-twist, hauling something to the surface, something that burns like ice held too long against his skin—

Uryuu takes a careful, controlled breath. Resists the urge to press a hand to his chest. Forces his expression to remain calm, remain cold, like all the times he’s stood before Ryuuken and forced himself to ignore a rant, forced himself to fake attention so he could escape sooner, rest sooner…

He figures it’s the same thing here, albeit with a… larger, more dangerous audience. None of them need to know how disgusted he feels having let Yhwach’s power into him. He needs to be a perfect little sheep, a Quincy returning to the fold, and not the wolf that he actually is.

But it’s hard. It’s so hard. Even as Yhwach continues his rambling, voice washing over Uryuu, it takes everything he has to remain still at the man’s side. He’s not catching more than one word in ten, but that’s… probably fine. He suspects it’s just some sort of rousing speech, nothing he really needs to pay attention to since he’s not a foot soldier.

He just wishes it were over already, because… because it’s getting worse. Yhwach’s power is trying to creep through his veins into the rest of his body and he wants to throw up, wants to scream, wants to howl his fury and rip himself away and flee and hide and never show his face again. It feels like being nine all over again, when his mother fell into a coma and he fell ill so suddenly, so thoroughly, that he spent weeks in the hospital, fading in and out of consciousness and unable to eat a thing.

He’d had to build himself back up from nothing after that illness, had to rebuild his muscles and his mind and his spiritual powers, all three weakened beyond any expectation of recovery, but he did it. He did it. Even in the face of Ryuuken’s disbelief and his sensei’s quiet despair, he’d done it.

And now Yhwach’s power is trying to overwhelm everything he clawed back from the nothingness he endured. From the nothingness he endured twice.

He refuses to let that happen again!

So he relaxes his hold on his power. Lets it coil through his veins, lets it chase-crush-devour the threads of Yhwach’s power trying to choke his own. Lets the strength of his soul rise, resonating with the thing Yhwach’s power dragged to the surface, and—

The voice droning beside him cuts off with a sudden wheeze. And then a cough, wet and painful. Gasping breathes and choking coughs and the thud of knees hitting the stone floor—

Uryuu stares down at Yhwach in shock, trying to understand, trying to process, even as the Quincy Progenitor clutches his chest like Uryuu had wanted to do and presses a hand to his mouth and coughs, blood already coating his fingers and dripping down his chin and staining his white clothes a brilliant crimson. He stares as Yhwach takes a wet, shuddering breath and slumps further, slowly collapsing like salt melting into water. Stares as Yhwach finally sprawls across the floor like a doll tossed away by a careless child, his mouth open, blood dripping from his nose and mouth and even his eyes, his breath coming faint and uneven, longer and longer between each inhale, each exhale…

(And all the while, Yhwach’s power squirms within Uryuu’s body.)

(Squirms and squirms and squirms, writhing-clawing-prying at every crack and cranny and crevice of Uryuu’s soul, trying to take, trying to consume, trying to survive, and—)

(Uryuu’s power tears at it, tears and tears and tears, ripping apart each grasping tendril as it appears, fighting back as he once fought back against death itself, until the invader is nothing but shreds, nothing but fading remnants struggling to remain intact.)

(And then the whatever that Yhwach carved upon his soul flares, burning ice turning to freezing fire and erases every last trace of Yhwach in his body.)

Yhwach gives one last broken gasp and falls silent. His chest no longer rises. His fingers no longer twitch.

He is still. Silent.

Dead.

Soft, restless murmurs begin in the crowd in front of them. Begin to swell, rising in pitch and volume, an edge of panic creeping in. Someone moves closer. Kneels at Yhwach’s side. Wipes his face clean and tugs his body straighter and says something, something sharp, something demanding, that Uryuu can’t understand. He should, he knows he should, he’s pretty sure the man is speaking Japanese, but he just… can’t. He can’t, and so he just lifts his gaze from Yhwach’s dead-slack-cold face and fixes it on the man and stares.

(There’s syrup in his brain.)

(There’s syrup in his brain and cotton in his ears and it’s like back then, back when he survived against the odds, survived and had to claw his way back, and he doesn’t… he can’t… not right now, not right now…!)

Laughter, sharp-vicious-gleeful laughter echoes through the chamber. Draws Uryuu’s gaze from the man’s darkening expression and over to the audience. To another man, head thrown back and shoulders shaking and bright bright hair like a banner, like a rejection of all the white, all the cold monotony everywhere and…

Uryuu can’t look away. Even as the man at Yhwach’s side snaps something else. Even as the crowd begins to rouse. Even as the press of reiatsu turns cold-vicious-furious against his skin.

He can’t look away from the flash of bright color. The laughter. The clear glee that stretches across sharp features.

(Yhwach is dead.)

(Yhwach is dead and one of his Wandenreich is laughing—)

Another snap of words, answered by the bright-haired man. Snap and answer, snap and answer, fury building-building-building even as space begins to open around the bright-haired man, their audience backing away and splitting up into little groups.

Snap and answer. Snap and answer. Gestures, wide and angry and demanding, met by cold fury as the man at Yhwach’s side stands. Draws his blade. Spits something vicious that makes the bright-haired man cringe back and Uryuu…

Uryuu hums. Tears his gaze from the bright, bright man who burns with cold-vicious-demanding fire and onto the man near Yhwach instead. He… doesn’t like that man. He doesn’t. There’s something… he can’t remember. But. He doesn’t like that man and something in him writhes, reaching-reaching-reaching—

An arm wraps around his waist. Yanks him off his feet. Throws him over a shoulder and the world blurs. Blurs again. Again.

His captor is talking. His captor is talking but Uryuu can’t find the strength to understand, to fight, to free himself, but… it’s fine. He catches sight of bright hair. Presses a hand to his captor’s back. Feels the pulse of cold-vicious-demanding fire against his senses and…

Slumps in the man’s hold.

He’ll either live to regret this later or he won’t but for now…

For now, he’s just tired.

He closes his eyes…

…and lets himself fade.