It wasn't right. Then again, nothing ever seemed to be right anymore. Could it? When you stretched so far to welcome something new in, and then that aspect of your life suddenly disappeared after you finally learned to embrace it? No; it wasn't right at all.

And even worse, nobody knew. Nobody could feel that emptiness, that invisible and yet all-too-real void. Nobody else was irked even slightly every time somebody – that, he told himself, had never existed anyways – wasn't there to walk with them back home.

He was going to get her back; he knew that. He knew, too, that he would succeed. What he didn't truly understand was why. He told himself that it was because she had saved his life, and in doing so, saved the lives of all those around him. But for some reason that continuously managed to elude him, he didn't believe himself.

But of course, there was no other possible reason for his wanting to save her life (and, though he never said it aloud, wanting to bring her back to his world where she didn't belong – but since he didn't say it aloud anyways, didn't acknowledge it, he didn't have to think about it).

All he really knew was that she did belong here, with him – but he wouldn't let himself hear that either – and that he would get her back. (Because she saved him.)

He never realized that his getting her back wasn't at all the same thing as her saving his life.


Why? The word seemed to never tire of echoing around in his mind, never mind how he could not possibly answer its eternal questions. Why didn't she come back? Why won't she? Why do I even want her to?

Somewhere along the way, he had unknowingly fallen into thinking that she was going to go back with them (him). Last time, when she had been forcibly taken to Soul Society, he had had a reason to think (obsess) about her. But now, this time, he had no reason at all (at least, not one that he would admit to himself).

She was safe in Soul Society, or as safe as anyone could be with Aizen's threat, and she had wanted to stay there. She was never supposed to have been known to him in the first place, never supposed to have changed his life so drastically. She was never supposed to have been a part of his life that he recognized (missed).

There was no explanation for his remembering her, thinking about her. She wasn't in danger any longer, his debt to her had been fulfilled, and they were both in their different (separate) worlds.

He tried his best to ignore that voice in the back of his mind that sounded oddly like her as it softly scoffed at him, except that she was never soft, not at all. She was fast and strong and dark and slender and he wanted -

Nothing. He wanted nothing.