i.
Slipping into the dark.
It was comforting, almost, how constant it was.
It wrapped around his soul, promising only pain. But pain didn't lie. How could it?
He stumbled and fell, reaching out, hoping to catch the bed before he hit the ground. To fall into the deep slumber that blocked out all the memories. A sleep without dreams.
He was a broken man. He had no more dreams.
ii.
Slicing through the enemy, he turned to view the damage he had caused.
A monster. That's what he was.
A monster that could still feel the pain of his enemies as he severed their ties to existent.
And perhaps, that was the worst kind of monster that existed.
iii.
Sliding into the familiar position of submission, he bowed his head.
He did all he was told. The orders were followed without fail.
The screaming of his soul, however, seemed to show even when he tried to hide it. The others avoided him. A cloud of misery loomed over him.
Misery loves company was a phrase that he felt fit him well.
A little too well.
iv.
Spreading the pain wasn't something he meant to do.
It was his burden. A burden he would carry for the rest of his life.
Betrayal from another cut deep, betrayal by oneself destroys.
Both had happened to him.
v.
Sharing his poems were not the same as before.
The feelings he felt could no longer be conveyed in words, the tears he could not cry remained supressed.
Empty words and the motions of his duty was all that was left.
Even his subordenants knew, even they left him.
He was abandoned once again.
vi.
Momo's voice drifted into his mind and he struggled to remember.
The liquor was forcing him to forget so he stood and, swaying, managed to reach the coffee sitting on his table.
He couldn't remember how long it had been there.
It didn't matter.
He collasped before he could bring it to his lips and the cold liquid stained his clothes, pooling out in the carpet almost like thin, brown blood.
Wabisuke was roused and a word echoed in his mind: "Wake."
vii.
He didn't let the others see how much Ichimaru's betrayal had gotten to him. Surely, they thought it was bad anough without seeing the true pain.
Despair.
He thought back on a conversation with Orihime after the girl had come and visited.
Very sadly, she had told him: "My captor… He called his second resurrection form true despair."
The biggest difference between him and the Espada, he decided, was that the arrancar's hole had been on the outside.
Wabisuke cried for him.
viii.
A warm hand on his shoulder woke him, pulling him from the dark.
"Kira, you need to… To stop."
He didn't ask what she meant. He knew. Stop despairing.
But how could he?
Wabisuke trembled in his hand.
ix.
He thought of ending it but didn't.
He deserved the punishment of going on even when it was hard. It was what he should do.
Still, Wabisuke screamed as he killed yet another.
x.
The dark was such a wonderful place to be.
Slipping in and out, it became easier to drink his conciousness away.
No longer could he understand life without pain and darkness. No longer could he remember his ignorance. Had he ever been truly happy?
It was hard to recall but something red and fiery danced behind his eyelids beside a soft, warm brown.
Izuru Kira was a broken man, a hollow man.
But he was also a shinigami and he had a duty. A duty he would do until the end of his life.