Author's Note: Hoorah, after a long lack of updates, another one-shot for you. If you haven't watched DiamondDust Rebellion yet, it might be a little confusing, though. Enjoy!

Happy Ending

I will never live to see that happy ending.

But you will.

I won't have the perfect, happy ending from fairytales.

But you will.

I, Kusaka Sojiro, won't be around to see you when you reach your happy ending.

But you, Hitsugaya Toshiro, will.

You will have that happy ending. I know you will.

Remember when you were little, and your grandmother told you all sorts of stories? I know mine did. Stories about brave samurai gallivanting off to far away places, battling all sorts of demons and monsters to serve their lords, or even to save their dearly beloveds.

All of these stories would always end with "and they lived happily ever after."

Our story was no fairytale.

Ours was more like a dream that faded too quickly and then turned into a nightmare.

We had no such happy ending. Our story didn't end like I wanted it to. How you wanted it to. How it should have.

We really were star-crossed from the very beginning.

I remember the first day I met you. I remember it being something like love at first sight, if such a thing even exists. I remember your timid smile, your eyes shyly downcast.

Just when I thought we might actually get that happy ending we both wanted so badly, they tore us apart.

It was almost like Romeo and Juliet. Except I was no perfect, dashing Romeo. And when I was gone, you did not leave with me. In the ideal romantic tragedy, we would die together, side by side. Even that kind of ending seemed beyond our reach.

You were left in that life to suffer and mourn my death.

But it wasn't over yet.

I wasn't dead. Physically, yes. But spiritually, no. And I had the power to come back to you.

You were a different case.

In the years you spent serving Soul Society, quietly, obediently, and without questioning your superiors, you were alive and well physically. But I knew that ever since I had left you behind, you had already been dead on the inside.

Then, one day, it happened.

My perfect chance to come running back into your arms.

Times change, though. I knew that it wasn't that simple. There was no way I could come back into your life and expect us to be able to pick up from where we left off before.

You had a duty to serve a higher power.

This wasn't something I could interfere in.

We had already drifted too far apart from each other. We were in two different worlds, so to speak. You, a respected officer of the Gotei 13, as opposed to me, a rogue, a stray that was supposed to be long dead.

Naturally, I knew that if I returned to you, I'd be the enemy of my former superiors. Your superiors. Your enemy.

I had to see you no matter what the cost, though.

And that was when I came up with that crazy idea.

It didn't have to be this way, I thought. Who needed authority? I could change the fate we had been doomed to. I could reclaim you for myself.

I could be authority.

So I found you and stole the Ouin. With its power, I knew I could bring you back to my side. I could destroy everything that tried to keep us apart. It didn't matter to me that I would be up against all of Soul Society. I was sure it would be mine soon, anyway. I would rewrite every stupid law that had ripped you from my arms. I would tear apart everyone who had caused us grief and suffering. I would make them pay for what they did to you. To us. To me.

I was so consumed with my new power that I didn't realize I was doing this not for you, not for us, but for myself.

It never occurred to me how you would feel.

It was hard on you, I know. It was selfish of me to pop back up all of a sudden, trying to take the Ouin you were supposed to be guarding with force. I was so preoccupied with this goal that I didn't even realize I had wounded you, both physically and mentally.

I was a stranger to you by then.

I was no longer the person you had fallen in love with back in our academy days.

I was someone – no, something else. I had become so self-absorbed with my own plans that I didn't stop to think about the consequences. I didn't stop to think that I was hurting you. And that I was, in fact, losing you again.

It was a hopeless effort from the start.

What had I been thinking? What had possessed me to cause me to believe I could change the relationship between you and I? What made me believe we could be together again?

Besides, there was already someone else.

Someone else was in my way. He stood firmly between you and me. No matter how hard I tried, he refused to budge. He wasn't doing it out of plain stubbornness. He wasn't doing it to be a hero.

He was doing it for your sake.

I remember asking for his name. He gave it to me. A good, strong name, too.

Kurosaki Ichigo.

I hated him. I loathed him. I despised him. I wanted, with all of my blackened heart, to shed the blood of this bold young man who wouldn't leave your side. Who wouldn't stop interfering. Who wouldn't stop getting in my way.

Who wouldn't stop loving you.

That was the bottom line for me. That was when I snapped. I wanted to rip him to pieces, to grind him into dust until there was nothing left.

I was consumed – no – possessed with jealousy. It had taken over my entire being. I thought he was trying to take you away from me.

I was wrong.

I later came to realize that he was only trying to protect you.

He knew I was not the same person I had been years and years ago. He knew I had changed, for the worse. He knew that I would hurt you if you gave me the chance. He knew I would try to force you back to my side.

And he knew that I knew.

I fought with him many times. I'll admit he was one of the toughest opponents I ever went up against. He just wouldn't back down. I couldn't get rid of him, no matter how hard I tried.

Finally, I found you.

I got to you before he could. I took you back with me to Soul Society. I told you about my plans for the two of us – or rather, for me.

You will help me, I had ordered you, You will help me and you will rule by my side.

I was so sure that you would accept me that I didn't notice how terrified you were. I didn't notice how badly I had wounded you during our first encounter. It was written clearly in your eyes how terribly your heart was aching.

And yet I paid no attention to this at all.

Naturally, you refused to help me meet my selfish ends.

Shortly before that, I remember me telling you, I'm going to make them pay for what they did to us. I'm going to make my dreams come true.

You had looked at me with that wide-eyed expression that I knew you'd always have when your emotions were waging war within you.

You stared back at me, unwavering, unafraid. Your tormented emerald eyes looked straight back into my empty, hollow, bloodshot ones. And then you asked me, Your dreams?

That was something I would never forget.

So when you flat-out refused to aid me in my goals, needless to say, I was pretty pissed off. Then, Kurosaki Ichigo showed up. That was when I lost my temper.

I attacked you with everything I had. I wanted to beat you into submission, beat you until you bled. I wanted to see that crimson proof of your beating heart, I wanted to hear you scream out. I wanted you at my mercy. I wanted you to beg me to stop. I wanted to rip that quiet determination from you until you would have no other choice but to obey my every command.

It didn't work.

I couldn't break you.

Maybe it was because all of Soul Society was watching you. Maybe it was because you wanted to bring me back to my senses.

Or maybe it was because Kurosaki Ichigo was counting on you.

Whatever it was, it only made me angrier. At that moment, jealousy and greed swallowed me up entirely. I forgot who I was and what I wanted. All I knew, at that moment, was that I wanted you to realize how wrong you were to turn me down.

I released the Ouin without thinking. At that moment, there was only one thing on my mind…

I was going to tear Kurosaki Ichigo into pieces. I was going to kill him. And I wanted you to watch me take everything away from you, just like you had to me when you had refused to help me. Your pride, your dignity, your heart, your will. Your precious Kurosaki Ichigo.

As you know, things didn't work out the way I had expected them to.

He defeated me easily.

I knew he had already won from the moment I saw him speak to you before we fought again – and brought a painfully rare smile to your pale, tired face.

Next thing I knew, it was just you, me, and him.

I knew it was over. I didn't want to say goodbye to you again. But I knew we had no other options.

I was surprisingly at ease when your blade pierced my body. I wanted to apologize to you so badly, to tell you how sorry I was for hurting you, to tell you how much I loved you.

To tell you how badly I had wanted us to have that happy ending.

And here we are now with me in your arms, for the last time, fading away, slowly dying.

Kurosaki Ichigo is watching from a distance. He knows not to interfere. He knows to leave us alone together to say our final unspoken goodbyes.

Kusaka, you are saying, your voice trembling, We'll always be…friends.

Both of us know that we can't be anything more than that. We couldn't have, ever since I had died for the first time so many years ago.

I look at your eyes. They aren't so determined anymore. They're full of tears.

Don't cry, Toshiro. Please, don't cry.

I know I've disappointed you. I know I wasn't able to give you that happy ending.

But someone else is.

I've only known Kurosaki Ichigo for a day or two. But I can tell that he is willing to do anything and sacrifice anything for your sake. I know he won't back down. I know he won't give up.

I know Kurosaki Ichigo is that kind of man.

I wish you two the best.

And I don't think he can give you that happy ending that I was unable to.

That's because I know he will.

Take care, both of you.

Thank you, Kurosaki Ichigo.

Goodbye, Hitsugaya Toshiro.

It's my last wish to see the two of you live like the heroes in the stories our grandmas would tell us when we were little…

Happily Ever After.