Author's Note: A story of Hisana and Byakuya. For previous stories in this sequence, please see my profile. That will show you the order they come in.

Big thanks to Kaze, Iceangel, Splitheart and IsleofSolitude for the reviews and to everyone else following.

Byakuya is missing in action, his spiritual presence no longer detectable. Unwilling to give up on his comrade, Ukitake has enlisted the help of the person who seems to know him best: Hisana. They have arrived on the scene to find many of the shinigami from his division either dead or paralysed by a hollow's venom.

Now, Hisana has found Byakuya, but, in doing so, has become separated from the other shinigami.

And the story continues…..

The hollow was naga-like in appearance; a bloated and scaly torso tapered into a thin, prehensile tail, which had wound itself around Byakuya's body leaving only his head and left arm free of the coils. Two pin-pricks of light burned in the its eye sockets and, between them, a long spear of solid bone, a unicorn's horn protruded from the creature's brow. Head down, it was probing his body; then, as she watched, it reared like a snake and stabbed downwards into Byakuya's wrist.

She gasped, but caught herself and bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from crying out. Hard enough to taste blood on her tongue as she watched the thing tear through his arm. In the end, she looked away.

The ground at her feet was covered in glass. At least, that was what she thought it was. It looked as if someone had shattered a stained glass window just above her head: a thousand shards lay scattered throughout the clearing. Pink, she had initially mistaken them for blossoms, though of course, in the middle of winter that was impossible.

As she stepped forward, they seemed to shiver beneath her feet. She had the sense that she was stepping into a circle of static energy, and that was when she knew he was alive. Her awareness of him was faint, like a candle held up to the sun, but it was present nonetheless and, with that knowing came the realisation that she was not going to stand by and watch.

With a scream of anger she ran forward. In the same moment, the thing raised its head and bellowed. Something dropped from the sky above her; something with claws that dug into her back and sent her sprawling forward into the heaps of pink glass. It launched itself into the air again with a great beating of wings. The first hollow. Long strips of black fabric from her clothes hung from its claws, like tattered flesh. The other demon bellowed and thrust down again into Byakuya's arm. His body jerked in the folds of its white tail.

The scavenger's claws had left lines down her back.

"This will offer you some protection," Ukitake had sai,d back in his quarters as he'd prepared her for the mission, looping a thin chain around her wrist. She'd shivered. The metal made her feel strange and as she watched, the end of the chain unlinked itself. The tip threaded into her wrist and she squealed even though she hadn't felt a thing. "It's alright! It's created from a condensed liquid. It enters through the pores in your skin and carries the mechanism around your body."

"What mechanism?"

"It isn't a shield, so don't imagine it is impervious, but it is specially designed for souls with a lower reiatsu. It simply increases your external spiritual pressure, making it harder for you to be cut in a fight. It works by channelling your own reiatsu into a more controlled form. No souls are completely without spiritual pressure, but shinigami learn to control every aspect of it. That's why such a device would be useless for them, but for you, someone who is untrained, it will channel your wasted or unneeded energy into protecting you. Does it surprise you to learn that, given training, your own talents would not be far from those of one of my men?"

Ukitake's gift lessened the wounds that should have appeared on her back after that attack, but she could still feel them: stinging lines following the vertical of her spine. She got to her feet, fists balled at her sides, her body rigid with the desire to act, even in the face of her own helplessness. Where were the shinigami? Why had they not come? They were faster than her and they had been only paces behind.

The scavenger circled above. Neither demon had any real interest in her. Compared to Byakuya's, her reiatsu was probably disappointingly low, but that didn't mean they weren't watching her. There was a fierce intelligence in the shining yellow eyes of the naga as they flicked back and forth between its prey and the spirit-girl who watched. Byakuya's body jerked again and she took an involuntary step forward.

The demon lifted its head:

"Run away."

She froze. Its voice was like the sea pulling back from a shingle beach: a lengthy, rasping hiss. Hisana looked up at the scavenger, then at the scene around her: the empty woodland.

Where? Where were the shinigami?

And, this time, the scavenger dropped without warning. Its weight, as it struck, knocked her to the ground and her breath, along with any chance of calling for help, were slammed out of her lungs in an explosive gasp. As its wings fell around her like a veil, she screwed her eyes shut, sipping breaths through her teeth. In a second, that long beak would punch through her ribs, just the same way it had the dead shinigami she'd seen back at the rubbish dump. Just as it would Byakuya when the other demon was finished with him.

There was a breeze. A burst of silvery light. A blade whistled past her cheek. All at once, the weight was gone. In her relief, she remained face down, her breath steaming up the pink shards. Were they glass or were they metal? When she did look up, it was to see the shinigami Ukitake had assigned to mind her step out of the air above the naga demon and slash through the coils that held Byakuya. His body rolled out of the broken and bloody folds of the creature's tail to lie unmoving in the centre of the clearing, while demon and shinigami entered into a fierce battle, the naga using its horn to slash and parry like a sword.

"Where are the others?" shouted Hisana, getting to her knees. Focussed on the fight, the man didn't answer her. She half-ran, half-scrambled to where Byakuya lay. His eyes were open and, at first, that frightened her, until she saw them flick towards her, bright with fear.

The battle was moving into the trees, the shinigami trying to lead the hollow away, no doubt. Hisana untied the obi at her waist and shrugged off the tattered black kimono she wore over her juban. Unlike the others, she knew of no way to heal him or help with the pain, but she knew how to bind a wound.

Ukitake had said the venom caused paralysis. Hisana couldn't imagine what it would be like to stare out of a body she couldn't move. Byakuya's eyes closed to half-slits as she worked, but her initial fear that he was losing consciousness was waylaid when she realised he was only concentrating on weathering the pain. His breathing was deep and controlled and she murmured apologies as she bound the wound in his wrist.

She turned away momentarily to tear more fabric from the kimono.

"Hisa" –

She jerked back at the sound of his voice. His eyes were open now, but unfocussed, as if he was concentrating on something she couldn't see. She could only guess at the willpower it was taking him to push through the bonds of the venom. She lay one hand on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his body through his clothes, the rise and fall of his breathing. "Hisa – No," he whispered.

She bit back platitudes. She swallowed the desire to tell him that she would stay with him even if the hollow returned and the other shinigami never arrived. He didn't want to hear that. "Run away," he said. Soft but clear.

With steady hands, she finished work on his arm and stood up, squinting into the shadows. She could hear the sounds of fighting, but could see nothing beyond the first line of trees.

She knelt again and, with a muttered apology because she could not look him in the eye, looped Byakuya's arm around her shoulders. Try as she might, though, she could not lift him. They ended up slumped together, his laboured breathing hot against her cheek: "Run – away."

"I won't, Byakuya-sama."

"Hisana."

"I won't."

But her heart started to thunder as the naga-demon drifted back into view, its horn thrust forward, scouting through the flakes of pink metal as if the protruberance were the stick of a blind man. Byakuya, whose head lay against her shoulder, had not seen it yet. "Hisana," he whispered again. His voice sounded more distant now. Did he notice the way her breathing changed as the hollow lifted its head and looked straight at them. She tried to steel herself. Better if he didn't know. He would be angry with her if he knew she intended to die with him. It was a stupid whim anyway. She pressed her lips to his cheek and wondered if he knew that she had started to cry: "I'm sorry, Byakuya-sama." With cruel slowness, the demon wound its way towards them.

In those moments, Hisana became aware of several things: the way the metal shards littering the clearing shivered as the hollow moved through them; the noise of fighting just metres away in the close shadow of the trees; and the sword that was bound to Byakuya's right hand. His sword. Only the hilt remained. The blade, it seemed, had shattered. Yet, at some point, he had gone to the trouble of binding it there with the strips of his sageo, in such a way that his fingers still gripped the hilt. So tightly that his skin was pressed pale beneath the leather bands.

She noticed all these things. And the shinigami that burst through the trees, as the naga-demon reared, seeming, to her, to move in slow motion. The man's sword slashed down, cutting through the horn of the hollow's skull, which shattered into long shards of bone. They fell like spears and she reached up to cover her own face and Byakuya's. From the broken horn, a stream of bloody purple liquid oozed. Some of it landed on the ground nearby; some on the unfortunate shinigami who landed in the grass and wiped it from his face in disgust. The hollow bellowed and wheeled away, withdrawing to the far side of the clearing to vent its fury.

"You must return to the senkaimon," he said. She still didn't know his name, she realised. Somehow that seemed important. She had been holding her breath and now she let it out in a cough, tightening her hold on Byakuya. The warmth of his body was the only thing that made sense to her. "Lady Hisana?"

"Where are the others?"

"There's two of those demons." He didn't look at her.

"Where is Ukitake-taichou?"

"I don't know. We were ambushed. I left the others fighting. It had already taken down three of our officers."

"How?"

"This is poison!" He lifted his palm, still dripping with purple bile, to show her: "It targets the wrists: the points where reiatsu can enter and leave the body, injects the venom and leaves it to take effect. These birds – they're not a separate entity; they're part of the same creature. They consume the body and soul that are left behind. Ukitake had no idea what we were facing."

"He knew the risks," said Hisana. They had discussed it, in his quarters, in the barracks of Thirteenth Division.

Kuchiki-taichou will never forgive me," he had said, staring out in consternation across the dark lake. "However, he has not lived as long as I have. You see, Hisana-san, he and I, and you to a certain extent, are creatures of extraordinary longevity. I've been in this world for close to a thousand years and something that I have learnt is that, though life is precious, there are moments when great risks must be taken. Moments when, to risk anything less than that which is most precious to you, would do a disservice to your soul. That is what I believe." He turned around: "I am not choosing for you, Hisana-san. I want you to understand that."

He had known the risks and she had been under no illusion as to the dangers. That didn't make it easier. It only meant that she had made a choice and she had never once doubted that it was the right one.

In her arms, Byakuya's breathing had become more laboured, and she found herself waiting for his every breath.

"What is the poison?" she asked and swallowed as she added, more softly: "Will he die?" The shinigami looked at her:

"I don't know. It obscures his reiatsu and paralyses his body. That's all I know."

"He's growing weaker."

"His sword is in shikai. That means his reiatsu is still strong, even if he's unable to use it." When she looked blank, he added: "The blade would reform if he lost consciousness."

"I don't understand. His sword is broken."

"No. Look around you; the blossoms on the ground. Each one is a part of his blade. That's how he fights. The blade dissolves into a thousand, each one capable of cutting his opponent. He has never shown you?" She shook her head. On the far side of the clearing, the hollow was still wailing. Two shadows, black on black, emerged from the trees and spread their wings. The shinigami swore. "Lady Hisana, please go back to the senkaimon."

"I will not return without him."

"Can you carry him?"

"No. I'm not a shinigami; I don't have that kind of strength."

"That's unfortunate." He took a stance, feet apart as the scavenger birds drew closer. Hisana felt her heart start to beat fast. "Ukitake-taichou charged me with protecting you," the shinigami said; he had broken a sweat across his brow: "He said that if I let anything happen to you then Kuchiki-taichou would never forgive me."

"So."

"If I fall, you go straight to the senkaimon. The hollow will not go after you." She set her mouth in a line and glared at him as the hollows wheeled overhead and circled back. He watched them, following their movements with every muscle in his body: "Promise me that," he said.

She had no time to answer though because the hollows attacked.

The bird's beak raked down her arm and over her shoulder as she pushed Byakuya to the ground. When she looked though, the cuts were shallow. It had been the same when the other bird had clawed at her back. Painful, but the injuries weren't deep.

"Lady Hisana!" the shinigami cried as he saw the winged hollow dive at her then take flight again, its wings beating fierce currents into the still air. Hisana kept her head down, against Byakuya's chest, her clothes and his flapping around her as the demon ascended.

She lifted her head to see the shinigami, having dodged the attack of the first bird, leap into the air and impale the second with his sword. It burst into ribbons of blue light that threaded to the ground and dissolved. The first bird wheeled back. This time, though, the shinigami had misjudged. He had assumed it would target him. Instead, it flew in low over his head and gripped his sword in razorish talons. He was jerked backwards, losing his grip on the air even as the sword was snatched from his hands.

He landed in a crouch in the middle of the cascade of pink blossoms that had once been Byakuya's blade. From there, he tried to run, but he only managed a few paces before a second naga-demon emerged from the trees. It wove across the clearing. The shinigami turned, suddenly cornered and unarmed. The scavenger hung in the air above him; the naga just paces away.

They attacked as one.

His body was jerked into the air on the tip of the naga's horn. It punched through his chest and he hung there, arms and legs swinging with the motions of the hollow's head. When it seemed certain he was dead, it shook him off, discarding his body amongst the thousands of pink sakura.

Hisana, who had been unable to move throughout, started at a thud in the grass behind her. She turned, almost reluctant, certain that it was another of the birds. There was nothing there. At least, not at first glance. Then she saw that the scavenger, in flying overhead, had dropped the shinigami's sword. She looked back.

There were three hollows now: two naga and one scavenger. The naga with the shattered horn was closest, keening softly to itself in its agony. The other, the one whose horn was red with shinigami's blood, scanned the scene, its eyes narrowing to pinpricks of light as they fell on Byakuya and Hisana:

"Still good feeding," it hissed, its eyes growing brighter as they widened: "Step away from him, Girl."

It was hard for Hisana to untangle her hands from the white scarf that Byakuya wore at his neck. She had wrapped her hands into it, but, now that they were free, she stood up. And she stepped back, away from his body.

Go at once to the senkaimon, the shinigami had said. Promise me that.

Run away.

She took another step backwards. Two steps. Three.

The naga with the shattered mask slithered towards Byakuya's body, crooning sorrowfully. The other joined it. Hisana's heel connected with the shinigami's sword and she froze. At the same time, the second naga reared and gored the first, straight through the chest. The keening rose to an almost unbearable pitch, and Hisana slammed her hands over her ears before the creature's misery finally ended. Its body blurred, dissolved and fell to the ground in a blanket of dust. Cautiously, she took her hands away. There was a ringing silence.

"Why?" she asked softly.

The hollow, which had turned greedy eyes on Byakuya, looked up with irritation, as if impatient at the interruption. Behind it, the scavenger was tearing into the dead shinigami's body. Hisana tried very hard not to see.

"What use if he could not feed?" asked the hollow, indulging her. It had no mouth that she could see, but nevertheless, she had the impression that it was grinning: "Now, what are you waiting for?"

"I promised myself – that I wouldn't run away."

"What a meaningless promise!"

"Yes. It is." She crossed her hands, one over the other and held them at her waist, then bowed: "Excuse me."

"Are you just going to sit there and watch me eat him?" The demon asked, amused, It hadn't seen,when she bowed, the way her right hand had lightly brushed over her left wrist, but now, hidden in the palm of her right hand, she held the silver chain that Ukitake had given her as protection.

"If you need to remove it for any reason, it is activated by thought, by will. Obviously, it would be pointless to create something for souls with weak reiatsu that could only be retrieved by using more reiatsu. So simply touch your wrist and wish for it to be removed, and it shall be."

"You said shinigami don't use these?" asked Hisana.

"No. There would never be a point in a fight where a shinigami was not using their full reiatsu, either to attack or to strengthen their own protection."

"Is there anything else I need to know?"

"It works by binding itself to your soul, so, obviously, do not allow it to be tainted by anything." He frowned. "There is no reason why you should have to remove it for the duration of this mission."

"But if I was to do so, how would it be tainted?"

"For example, if a hollow touched it."

Hisana swapped the chain into her left hand and, making a show of brushing down her hakama, knelt down.

"So you won't run, but you recognise your own helplessness?" rasped the hollow. Hisana didn't answer. Her breathing was fast and shallow. She stared at her hands and tried to steel herself, visualising what she intended to do. Beyond her fear there was a deep calm.

In this, there would be no room for a mistake.

Where she knelt, she curled her toes underneath her body. The motion was so small that the hollow saw nothing, but continued to gloat, making a chittering sound in its throat. It wound through the sakura blossoms towards Byakuya. "Then stay and watch, Girl," it hissed. Its tail curled gently wround his waist and his body jerked as it tightened. Just as Hisana's hand swept through the wet winter's grass at her side and found the hilt of the dead shinigami's sword. She was already on her feet.

Somehow, she hadn't counted on the weight of the katana. She'd seen Byakuya practise the sword, his movements always so natural they seemed effortless. In her mind, that was how it was. Not the solid weight that pulled at her wrist as she ran; the tip dragged in the grass. Yet she reached the hollow and stabbed the blade down. The first slash drew blood, but didn't cut deep. The second and third were messy. It railed and wheeled away from where it had begun to feed on Byakuya's arm; its horn whistled through the air inches from her cheek, but she kept on. The flesh of its tail was a pulp by the time the blade shattered in her hand. She stared. She'd never seen a zanpakuto break. Yet, as she watched, the hilt too dissolved against her palm, leaving only cold, pale blue light. The side of the demon's horn caught her across the chest, knocking her backwards into the cherry blossoms. "Filthy human!" it screamed.

She watched with horror as it swept towards her. Something so simple as a moment's distraction, the broken blade, had cost her everything.

Yet the demon stopped short of her, eyes blazing.

Its tail was joined to its body now by nothing but bloody sinews and part of it was trapped under Byakuya's body. It was no more than a weight to the hollow, but it couldn't move now without tearing itself apart. It threw back its head and howled with rage and pain.

Hisana sat up, wincing as she did. Her hands and her right arm were pock-marked with blood, as if she had fallen into a thorn bush. Looking around, she could see nothing but Byakuya's sakura on the ground. She cursed. Those things were sharp. Up until now,Ukitake's chain muct have been protecting her from the myriad of tiny blades. She stood up carefully, the chain still clutched in her left hand.

The scene had changed. The naga demon was howling. Off to her right, the scavenger had taken to the sky. She hadn't considered the vast bird nor the possibility that, to reach Byakuya, she would need to put herself back in range of the naga.

She watched as the scavenger descended and lit upon the demon's back. The naga's scales shifted. The scavenger dug its claws deep into its spine, as if taking root there. Then the bird's whole body began to merge with the naga's. Hisana stared. Its wings lengthened. Arms pushed their way out of the snake-like torso, each tipped with grasping talons. It threw its head back and took flight, barely reacting to the pain as it left its mangled tail behind.

Hisana took the only opportunity she could.

Its wing-span filled the clearing, blocking out the moon. So, in near darkness, she closed the space between herself and Byakuya and dropped down beside him. Her hands were shaking as she pressed the chain against his left wrist, the one she had bandaged. She felt the metal links dissolve into his skin.

"Please. Please work," she whispered.

Any reiatsu that was not being used, Ukitake had said; any that was waisted. He was paralysed. Surely that meant that there was some left unused that the chain could channel. Surely. Yet she didn't know what effect it would have, if any. She hoped he would be able to use the wasted spiritual energy. Perhaps break the paralysis. Perhaps it would do no more for him than it had her, offering a temporary shield against injury. Perhaps it would buy them time. Perhaps it would do nothing at all.

Nothing at all. His eyes remained open, but unfocussed. The shinigami had assured her he was conscious, but she could see no proof of that. The only evidence he was alive came from the laboured rise and fall of his chest. "No," she pleaded.

The hollow had circled once around the clearing to guage its attack. Now it dived. "Byakuya! Byakuya!" She shook him, both hands on his chest. The ever deepening shadow and a whistling in the air warned her of the demon's descent.

She snatched his wrist, willing the chain out again. The links began to form against her palm. And then, one more stupid idea hit her.

She imagined the chain entering his wrist and her own at the same time. She took hold of his hand, threading his fingers through hers.

It felt as if a thread had lassoed the very core of her and she was jerked forwards. She fell against Byakuya's chest. The sound of a hurricane tearing the leaves from a thousand trees filled her ears as the air just inches above her head became a raging torrent of pink blossom. She pressed herself down against Byakuya, recalling just how sharp those blades had been. They did not move randomly. At first, they formed a barrier between her and the hollow. Yet, as she watched, they condensed around its form and she heard it scream. It was a terrible sound.

Byakuya' s breathing came easier now, though, for her own part, she didn't seem able to catch her breath.

The air around her had become heavy. Static currents snatched at her hair and the loose folds of her clothing. She knew this, had felt it before: an echo of it, at least, in Byakuya's presence. Yet it had never been like this. Never so powerful. Never something capable of hurting her.

Byakuya shifted. With a grunt of effort, he pushed her off of him. She rolled onto the grass, eyes open. She couldn't move. It was then that she knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

She couldn't breathe properly. "Byaku" – she whispered. Her tongue felt thick. He was still holding her right hand so tightly in his left, but her palm was cold. Painfully cold. "Byakuya, I can't move." Had he heard her? He was sitting up now, his lips drawn back in an uncharacteristic sneer. If anything, the pressure in the air around her increased. It forced tears into her eyes and, all the while, she could hear a choking sound. With horror, she realised that it came from her own chest.

The reiatsu that was crushing her was Byakuya's, but it felt wrong; it felt hostile. More than a force squeezing her from the outside, it was dissolving her from the inside too. The cold had spread up her arm and into her shoulder, into her back and chest. She started to cough. Like ice scraping the inside of her rib cage.

He glanced towards her. She couldn't make her eyes focus, but she knew that he was watching. Just watching her.

Above her, the glittering halo of sakura blossoms tightened like a singularity. She felt the cold rise into her throat, suffocating her like water. She had come close enough to drowning once to know what that felt like.

Above her head, a thousand blades tore into the hollow. It ended in a starburst, laithed into ribbons of viridian light that streamed out across the clearing in the very same moment that the pain left her body.

Byakuya was kneeling next to her. In his left hand, he held the chain that Ukitake had given her. Such a simple thing, trapped between his finger and thumb. She stared at it, not comprehending. And, as she watched, a change came over him. The colour drained from his face; his gaze became unfocussed, and he fell softly beside her, his eyes closed, his body suddenly still. With a silvering sound, the blade of his sword reformed in his right hand.

She tried to speak and no sound came out.

Was this the venom? Had it passed into her through the chain? Perhaps. It didn't matter. She felt drained. Sleepy. It seemed a travesty that she could not close her eyes.

She seemed to stare, for an eternity, into a single patch of sky.

It started to snow. Where flakes settled on her cheeks, on her eyelashes, she could not brush them away. Many times, she wondered if there were other hollows out there. She couldn't turn her head to look. But, beyond such fears, she had never known a stillness like this. The snowflakes turning, drifting like lazy stars. A silence that held within it all the absences: all the people who had closed themselves into their houses, barricaded against the cold; all the animals that had gone to ground; all the tiny movements of the forest stifled by snowfall.

This was what she had imagined death to be. Just silence. And no more reasons to move on.