It came as if time… didn't want it to. The sword coming at his neck, the flakes of snow almost motionless, the horror as it spread across her face. He wanted to look away, he didn't want to see the despair, to know the shame that he would be leaving her behind. Alone. He forced himself to look into those eyes of sea glass. Eyes that once were so beaten and weathered away. They'd begun to shine like polished gems, once, not so very long ago, not days ago. But now only terror and turmoil swirled in those eyes. Like stormy skies, they raged. He forced himself to look into the gleaming maelstrom. The fear, and the longing, the betrayal, the rain that threatened to come in a frozen forest.

He saw the cracks.

The cracks that spidered across their glossy surface. He saw something inside of her break.

His final sound, was her cry of anguish in his name as, for the second time, his world ended. His last sight before his fading soul was her shattering eyes of silver sea glass.

Then…

There was only Black

Black and the oblivion. There was no afterlife, not for him, not for eternity.

Eternity…

Without her…

Anguish. Screaming, sobbing, thrashing. They struggled to hold her down. They couldn't hold her down.

Not now.

Those last seconds wouldn't leave her eyes. They replayed in her head.

Over.

And over.

They burned themselves there.

The sword

The snow

The blood

The dust

She screamed as though it was she who felt the burn of steel severing her neck. Breaking she broke.

Inside her something broke.

She broke

Broken

She was broken

Shattered to pieces as everything was torn from her. She screamed in horror and in pain. Awakening demons and spirits to her anguish. Such horrid anguish.

He couldn't be gone

No.

No no no.

No please no.

The snow fell and she wept. Holding herself since he never would again.

The murderers, his murderers, the men who shattered her, murdered her.

Even they felt remorse at the sight of her grief.

A touch to her shoulder, just one touch, one single touch, and the world shattered. Their cries echoed through the snow filled valley, the snow melting under the assault of red anger, red revenge, red lust. The entirety of time must have finally ceased and been silent but for their screams.

She ripped every last one of them apart as they had had ripped him apart, as they had ripped her apart. Every wound given to him, she gave to them and every wound given to her was given to them. Her grief personified in a fit of insane rage. When the world ran red, and the air was still, no longer could she cry. Her breast was empty. She was broken. Forevermore she would be broken.

Collapsing stars,

And broken skies.

Dying suns ,

And crying eyes.

Flesh to dust,

And bones to rot.

Return to a world where you are naught.

AN: Well there's some angst for the Bankotsu fangirls out there who adore seeing there favorite characters in pain. You know who you are. Anyway felt a bit angst one night, heard some nice poetry, couldn't sleep. So by the light of my christmas light lamp I wrote a story at twelve o'clock at night. And the poem at the end has no name it is MINE so touch and my lawyers will descend upon you XD just kidding it's not very original anyway. Also the dust comment that some of you may have noticed I originally wrote this as a plot bunny of Bankotsu's survival of Mt. Hakurei only to be hunted down and killed anyway i didn't remove it because it's symbolic.