This story would not have been possible without The Lady Morana, betareader. Thanks, Morana-sensei.

Thanks to everybody who put this story on their alert list. I'm currently rewriting it, since the impact I was hoping for just wasn't there. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. This will consist of adding a multichapter backstory to what was originally the entire fic, then reworking the original a bit before reposting it as per the new order. Please be patient with me, as the backstory's romantic plot is giving me trouble. Thanks.

.:o0o~oOo~o0o:.

In Ichigo's inner world, it was raining cats and dogs, the thunder was deafening, and the ground beneath the buildings had begun to show puddles and pools. All, besides the sky, was dead silent and still.

Hichigo was thinking about his first clear memory. It had been seven years to the day since June seventeenth, the first day he could remember.

It had been just a normal day, as far as he could speculate, until sometime in the evening when a Hollow had attacked the kid's mother. He didn't really remember much of anything until much later. It must have been sometime, Hichigo thought, around one o'clock in the morning of the next day.

He could bring back every detail in perfect clarity: the green grass and grey water that marked the area as one of the many streams in the city. The slight rain drizzling down, muting the world's colors. More than that, however, he remembered the little child sitting by the river's edge, tears sparkling in his eyes, his clothes, face, and hair awash with drying blood. All Hichigo could remember thinking was: He's beautiful.

He remembered the look of terror on the boy's face, how his mouth opened in silent screams and cries, his little voice long gone hoarse. He remembered how small and weak, how delicate, his King had looked right then. Back then, how strong he'd felt, despite being, he was sure, somehow a little younger. It had been second nature to walk slowly, quietly up to him and carefully place his arms around the shaking shoulders, whispering that it would be okay.

He'd always known that he had to protect Ichigo, no matter what. It was the first time he'd ever externalized; he couldn't remember being able to unless Ichigo needed him. He was funny that way. But he was getting better at breaking out of the inner world, and staying in the outer, as he was involved more and more in Ichigo's fights. That move was now one he could almost always pull on-command. Then he could protect Ichigo, no matter the boy's stubborn nature. He frowned slightly, brows pulling together. Of course he had to protect Ichigo.

But right now, "protecting" the boy seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind. He thought back to the memory: when he'd pulled Ichigo to the ground, clumsily holding the boy in his lap, the tears had stopped entirely, and it hadn't taken long for both of them to fall asleep. How right it had felt to be the boy's protector, the one who offered him comfort, the one who stopped his tears. He'd fallen asleep knowing that this was right.

After falling asleep on the grass he, of course, had dematerialized back to Ichigo's inner world where he'd stayed, asleep for a long, long time. Until he was needed. However, it hadn't occurred to his King that he'd ever appeared before, or that by lending the boy his power in the shattered shaft and from then forward, he'd only been trying to help. Oh, of course not.

Why? Because Hichigo, in every sense of himself, had always been wrong. A Hollow, and to top that, stronger than Ichigo and unable to be controlled. Powerful, so of course, he'd have to be evil. The part of Ichigo's spirit that had fractured away, the part he'd been without all those years, now a totally and completely separate person. He was the one who gave Ichigo his bloodlust, his seemingly innate mental strength, the one who made sure his mind knew what to do in a battle. That was the reason he was so protective, almost possessive, of Ichigo: he knew that the boy, however powerful, lacked the true ability to thirst for blood.

It was his dearest wish, if nothing else, to protect his King. Because there was no denying that he needed protecting, even if Hichigo was the only one who knew.

…But he wasn't helping Ichigo now. Now, every word from his mouth was a threat or a mocking insult, things that only caused Ichigo pain. Even though, if he thought hard enough, he could define some reasons for this, none of them ever quite fit. It was wrong for him to hurt Ichigo and he knew it.

So he was being quiet today. Maybe if he was quiet enough, he could make it right. He could get it to stop raining, and be sunny again. Maybe it could even stay that way, if he was quiet enough. But it wasn't working. The rain became harder. He sat for a minute, considering, and then dematerialized. Maybe now he could do something to help Ichigo.

Ichigo had had a really, really bad day. It was one of those days that made him just want to die.

It had started early that day, when he'd woken up at four in the morning unable to sleep. Despite being up hours in advance he'd still been late for school, still forgotten his lunch, and had, as a result of his sleeplessness, fallen asleep on his math test. He received a zero for the blank paper he'd turned in with a shamed face.

He'd ended up being out late fighting Hollows. So late that sleep made him clumsy and he'd gotten hurt and Orihime was…ugh, he didn't even want to think about it…so he was in mind-burning agony from the Hollows' claws and teeth. Powerful, maybe, but a careful fighter Ichigo Kurosaki was definitely not.

But none of those things would have put him over the edge like this. None of them would have left him sitting on the banks of the town's biggest river with his face in his hands, wailing at the top of his lungs in the soft, misty rain that had only served to gradually soak him clean through. No, this had all been because of his last fight, and that little girl, the one who had died at his hands.

He could never remember being in so much pain. The Hollow he'd purified had managed to devour the soul of a living child—and God help him if she didn't look just like Yuzu. He had watched her blood spray everywhere; his whole body was sticky with it since he hadn't bothered to change or to even leave his spirit form. He didn't care. His last battle of the night had ended in the murder of an innocent child, and he was responsible. It hurt.

And he wasn't able to do anything about it but scream and cry. Scream until his voice left him and then try to scream some more, till his throat felt like it was on fire and swollen shut, till he could hardly breathe. Nothing more than let the tears stream scalding-hot down his face, and cry until his head pounded and he felt like he was going to throw up.

Why couldn't he have stopped it? It was the same, exactly the same, as that day all those years ago. He sat on the same riverbank, weak and hurting all over, unable to register any feelings but grief and the sickening texture of the cold, slimy blood all over his clothes and face, sticking in his hair. He couldn't save his mother; he couldn't save the girl. He couldn't save anybody. And, dammit, it hurt like Hell!

So here he sat, unable to even scream anymore, mouth wide open as he gasped for his lost breath, the cold rain-thick air stinging his raw throat. He couldn't even stop the tears: coursing down his face, soaking the front of his shirt, leaving salty splotches in the blood that was still damp in the misty rain. His body was numb all over, but inside he felt a tearing, ripping pain like nothing he'd ever had to endure. He just wanted to die. What good was he if he was this useless and weak, that all he could do was get there two seconds too late? He just really wanted to die…

And that was when he felt somebody standing in front of him, only a few feet away. He knew who it was, but chose to keep his head down and hope that the Hollow would leave him alone. He didn't bother questioning how it was that the white-faced bastard just ended up in the outer world without taking control, without even speaking. Ichigo was too tired and frazzled and hurt to notice anything unusual about it.

Any other time, he would have immediately pulled Ban Kai, and the stupid bastard would be a little splotch of bright-red arterial blood, the now-heavy rain already washing him from the grass. Right now, though, he was just too tired. He was just too weak; there was no way that he'd be able to fight his way out of this. And didn't he want to die? Just let him come. He could die right here, right now, with a single pure-white Getsuga Tensho.

So he didn't say anything when the Hollow came closer. He forgot to protest when he was pulled into Hichigo's lap, the soft, worn-in white shihakusho that he normally associated with an enemy brushing against his temple as his head settled on the Hollow's chest. He could hear his slow, strong heartbeat through the thick cotton. He forgot to protest as he felt Hichigo's hands stroking a path between his shoulder blades, playing across his sore, tense muscles until they found knots that needed untying. Nobody had given him a back-rub since he was little, since his mother was alive. It felt good.

But in fact, he remembered one other time, that felt so familiar, a memory that was lost to him most of the time. Pieces of it showed up in dreams, tiny pieces that reminded him of how old a memory it was, how strong. Though the pieces and scraps he could gather were strong, he could never quite put them all together… until now.

The river. The blood. His tears stopping, the last few droplets seeping onto rough-soft, heavy white cotton. Somebody stroking his back as if to pull the stress out of the wound-together muscles, holding him close, so close that their heartbeat echoed through his mind. And that low voice, trying to calm him down, speaking softly so that it was barely audible.

"Ssssh, King. It's all gonna be okay."