Ukitake's teachers at the Academy had decided to take the fourth year students on a real Hollow hunt through the districts of Rukongai just before Ukitake was informed of his father's death. He'd had to take a leave of absence at the start of winter break that lasted until the middle of the trip. He missed the first two weeks in order to set up a management system with his loyal family servants to run the enormous household while he was away at school. He promised his friends and teachers that he would meet them in District 46, which was not far from his home, and continue with them from there.

He did not keep his promise.

He left midday, walking at a pace good enough to reach the rendezvous point by nightfall. It was late autumn, and the colder, dryer air made his lungs ache despite the scarf around his face. He had tried not to think of Kyouraku's I-told-you-so, sure to ring out when his friend caught sight of him as he struggled to breathe. He grimaced and tried even harder to ease the wheezing.

Just after he entered District 46, his breathing became much worse, and he started to cough. The constriction dissipated quickly, however, and he pushed it out of his mind, focusing on the fact that it had passed. The thought that he might have gotten over the attack so easily gave him a renewed vigor and he pushed himself to go faster.

The second time it happened, he felt the reiatsu flare first, and realized it for what it was.

A Hollow was nearby.

Cursing softly, he threw off the scarf. He was still an hour away by foot from the rendezvous point. He wished quickly for Kyouraku's affinity to shunpo before drawing his zanpakuto and crouching low, hazel eyes scanning the surrounding woods. He released a bit of his reiatsu, feeling for the Hollow's presence.

So attuned was he to the pulse of his reiatsu that he did not recognize the shriek immediately for what it was. When he did, he took off running in the direction of the sound.

He quickly came upon a clearing. On the opposite edge he could see the back of a large Hollow. He could see no victim, but the shriek came again and the Hollow swiped at something.

Ukitake gritted his teeth. He knew his lungs were weak from the walk, but he couldn't just run away for backup when someone was in trouble--!

He flared his reiatsu. The front washed up around the Hollow's four legs—it was insectoid, and HUGE—and angered it. It scuttled around to face hi with large,, glittering yellow eyes and charged.

He raised his zanpakuto and silently leapt into the air. Unlike most of his classmates, he often refrained from issuing a battle cry before attacking. He could not afford the oxygen.

He slashed easily at the thing's mask after dodging the two waving pincers. To his surprise, it dodged his attack and scuttled to the side. He rolled and started running when he hit the ground, keeping an eye on the Hollow but making his way towards its victim.

A young girl and an even younger boy were huddled together in the rotted middle of a fallen log. The boy was crying softly, but the girl's tears were drying. Watching the Hollow, Ukitake asked the two if they were hurt. He shot a smile at the girl when they didn't answer. "I'm a shinigami. My name is Ukitake Juushirou. What's yours?"

The girl looked the thing nervously and then back at him. "Hoshi Linai. This is Kentou." She glanced again at the Hollow. "We're okay. Did it hit you?"

Ukitake frowned. "No, I'm okay." He smiled again reassuringly.

"But you're bleeding!"

His eyes widened before he realized he probably had blood on his lips. He touched them with a finger and looked at it—indeed, he was bleeding.

"Ah, it's nothing," he told her, though he could see she was not convinced. "I'm just a little—"

The Hollow yelled in frustration and he whirled to face it. "Linai, stay with your brother and hide. Do you understand me?"

She nodded, "Mm!" and pulled Kentou with her deeper into the hollow log.

Ukitake kept their faces at the front of his mind as he lifted his zanpakuto. He was the only thing standing between them and the hollow. He could not fail.

He could not cough.

He leapt to meet the Hollow and swung—

There was suddenly blood on the hard, winter-packed dirt. Linai screamed. Then there was only darkness.

Ukitake awoke only a moment later due to Linai's loud shrieking, which surprisingly contained coherent words: "Juushirou! It's got you! Wake up! Waaake UP!!"

He could see her standing, upside down out of the log. He frowned, and then the pinch of the Hollow's claw around his middle enlightened him to the fact that the damn thing was carrying him.

He clenched his fists, saw his zanpakuto lying uselessly on the ground below him, and glanced at Linai, who was still screaming at him. The Hollow's grating voice joined hers as it lifted him to its mouth to devour him.

"No! No no no no no NO!" screamed Linai.

"No!" yelled a second, higher, smaller voice to his left.

Kentou stood squarely and angrily looked up at the Hollow, a rock larger than his fist in his hand. "No!" he shouted again, which Ukitake desperately repeated, waving his arms to warn the toddler away.

Kentou threw the rock.

It soared through the air to land painfully on the Hollow's eye. Ukitake fell to the ground, and Kentou ran to his side with his stubby legs, a wide grin on his face. The white-haired shinigami remained on the ground, trying to regain his breath, until he saw Kentou's smiling face staring down at him. "Okay?" he burbled, touching him gently, as though searching for broken bones. "Juu-ro okay?"

The tiny face spurred him back into action. He quickly sat up and retrieved his zanpakuto. He moved to place himself between the Hollow and the child once again.

Linai ran over to them and put her arms around Kentou, shouting at him about being stupid. She was crying, which quickly made Kentou start again despite his recent happiness. Upon hearing both children's sobs, Ukitake's eyes widened, and he turned his back on the stumbling Hollow, which was stabbing at its eye with along claw in an effort to remove the rock from its mask.

He knelt and puta hand on each of their shoulders. He smiled without showing any bloody teeth and said, "Arigatou, young ones. You saved my life. Heroes don't cry, do they?" He wiped their cheeks with his thumbs, and they slowly hushed and calmed. "There, now, that's better. I promise I won't let it hurt you, alright?"

"Don't get hurt, Juushirou," Linai pleaded earnestly, and Kentou nodded.

He laughed easily. "Of course. I won't let myself get captured again. I promise."

And for the third time, he turned to face the monster.

It had successfully removed the rock but had also injured its left eye, which no longer glowed yellow but was only black behind the mask. Ukitake thought for a moment, trying to plan, and then he switched his zanpakuto to his left hand, in the Hollow's better line of sight. He swung it a bit to test his arm and trigger the muscle memories from long hours training with two blades with Kyouraku.

Then he extended his right arm in front of him, his palm facing forward. As the Hollow began to charge, he softly chanted the incantation for Shakka Hou. The words of power flowed easily off his tongue as though in a language he had spoken all his life.

The kidou fired when the Hollow was only three meters away, and it was powerful enough to knock it back. Ukitake quickly followed through with swings from his left side toward the Hollow's good eye. Two pincers came at him to block and were quickly separated from the Hollow's body; they fell away to sink point-down into the ground. The Hollow shrieked and twisted in a way Ukitake hadn't seen before—but he had already figured out what the move meant. When the whip-like, bony tail came at him this time, he was ready. The barbed tip soon joined the pincers in the dirt.

The Hollow shrieked again in pain and retreated, with Ukitake closely following it. It stood on its back legs and stabbed at him with the front two. It looked like it might get away.

Ukitake switched hands.

With his zanpakuto now out of the Hollow's line of sight, he had an advantage. He leapt into the air and brought the blade above his head.

The Hollow's final shriek was cut off when the blade finished slicing the white mask. The remains had dissipated as spirit particles before Ukitake could sheath his sword.

H smiled at Linai and Kentou, who stared at him in awe. When he gave them a tired thumbs-up, they yelled happily and ran over to jump on him. He fell back onto the hard cold ground with a laugh and an "oof!"

Linai realized he was having trouble breathing and pulled Kentou off of him. Embarrassed and breathless, he began to thank her when the attack came.

At first it wasn't bad, though there was a lot of blood and he could see it was scaring the children. He tried to tell them he was okay, but they met his half-hearted smiles with fearful eyes. Then it worsened and all he could think was that he couldn't get enough air. He fell to his knees, placing his hands on the ground.

He didn't remember collapsing.

When he awoke, he was lying down and moving with a gentle, bumpy rhythm. He looked around and saw members of his class walking and chatting. To his immediate right walked Kyouraku, who was uncharacteristically silent and somber, staring ahead, his mouth thin and drawn. Beside him walked Heiko-kun, Shihouin-kun, and Mashi-san, none of whom spoke aloud but kept passing glances to Kyouraku, to Ukitake, and then among each other. Mashi-san exclaimed when her glance was captured by Ukitake's open eyes.

"Ukitake-kun!"

All eyes were suddenly on him. He smiled self-consciously and then turned red when two tiny forms ran up and threw themselves on his litter.

"Juushirou! Juushirou!" Linai and Kentou cried, hugging him. He tousled their hair and told them they shouldn't have worried about him—there was no way he would have died, he promised, right?

Kyouraku gently—but still without smiling—lifted the children off the litter, which had stopped moving. Kentou whimpered a bit and ran behind his sister. "We'll see you later, okay, Juushirou?" she told him quickly, and the two let as fast as they had come.

"What was that about?" Ukitake demanded, glaring at the dark-haired youth. Kyouraku refused to meet his eyes as he answered, "I'm sure they have a game they want to play."

"Bullshit. They were afraid of you! What did you do to them?" When Kyouraku didn't answer, Ukitake turned his gaze on his other classmates. Some were watching Kyouraku and others had suddenly found the surrounding trees and rocks extremely interesting. None of the met his eyes.

He grabbed Kyouraku's sleeve. His reiatsu flared with his fury. "When I find out what you did to them, Kyouraku-kun, you will pay."

"Ukitake-kun," said Mashi-san quietly. "It wasn't—"

Kyouraku flung his arm, tearing his sleeve out of Ukitake's grip. Ukitake's expression shifted from anger to surprise. "What…?"

Kyouraku walked away.

Ukitake watched his back as he fled to the woods, and his brow furrowed. Mashi had put on a smile and was calling for Unohana. When the healer arrived, most of Ukitake's class stayed by his side to watch her poke and prod him. Ukitake shook off his discomfort from the confrontation with Kyouraku and played along, teasing the kind healer and remarking about how his friends had changed since he left nearly three months ago. "Mashi-san, is that a new hakama?" "Heiko-kun, I didn't think it was possible for you to row taller. Clearly, I was wrong." "Shrewd as always, Shihouin-kun. Even with the facial hair."

Mashi-san piped up, "And did you see Kyouraku's beard? Haha!"

Ukitake didn't let his face fall at the mention of his estranged friend, but he didn't laugh either. The moment quickly passed, and Ukitake was delighted to see Linai and Kentou rush up to talk to him again when they saw Kyouraku had gone. He willingly played little games with them, and Unohana scolded him for being boisterous while he was sick. He took heart and paid no attention to her words when he saw her grin.

In the middle of the game of Categories, Ukitake had a sudden idea. "Retsu-chan," he said to Unohana, turning on as much charm as he could summon while lying on a litter, "I'm feeling much better now that you've tended to me. Could I possibly walk the rest of the way back to the Academy? I promise I won't overwork myself."

Unohana raised an eyebrow at the adoption of Kyouraku's name for her and shook her head serenely. "It's not just your lungs this time, Ukitake-kun. You have a deep slash wound across the back of your head down to your waist." She gazed at him tiredly. "It has been all I could do to keep you from feeling the pain. Moving would only make it worse."

Linai caught on to Ukitake's significant looks faster than her brother did. "But, Unohana-san, Juushirou wants to play more with us, right? And he swore he'd protect us no matter what, so how can he do that if he as to lie down all the time?"

A crack appeared in Unohana's resolve. "I'm sorry, young one, but it would cause him a great deal of pain and would make his wounds worse…"

"Retsu-chan, I can assure you, I feel fin! I can certainly walk again—my lungs are working perfectly—" he took a deep breath and let it out to demonstrate, "—and that wound on my back is just a scratch." He looked pointedly at the children. "And I did promise to protect them. Linai makes a good point. How can I do that lying down?"

Unohana frowned. "I do not believe…"

"Oh, pleeeeeease, Retsu-chan?" He gave her his most winning smile and was surprised to see her blush faintly.

She sighed and consented, with a few conditions: he could not run, or leave the caravan, or be up for more than an hour at a time, and if he felt anything was wrong he had to report to her immediately. He agreed quickly and sat up, ignoring the screams of pain from his back. His head spun a bit, and he forced himself to remain perfectly still and show no sign of distress. When Unohana asked him if he was okay, he said yes, but she shook her head as if o say, "Then on your own head be it."

Once the pain was manageable, Ukitake stood up. Kentou shouted to be picked up, and Linai danced around his legs. He found the youthful presences soothing and took a few steps. When the pain did not get worse, he gained confidence and bent over to pick up Kentou. The protests from his back were horrible, but he shoved them out of his mind and placed the child on his shoulders.

"Where does he find that energy?" he heard Shihouin-kun whisper to Mashi-san.

"He is stronger than he lets on," Mashi-san whispered back with more than a little pride. "And the children help. He is so good with them. And they for him."

They shared a look that Ukitake could not hear, and he dismissed the conversation and pretended to play along with linai and Kentou's next game. At the same time, he strained to sense Kyouraku's reiatsu. After a bit of time he felt it, about 100 meters west of the caravan, cutting a parallel path to their group.

He drew the children close and told them his plan. "Can you do it?" he asked when he was done. They nodded eagerly, then shot off in the direction of the supply cart. They startled the horse, and Ukitake's classmates ran to snatch the children out from under its feet. Supplies were scattered on the road and had to be retrieved. In the commotion, Ukitake took off in the direction of his friend's reiatsu, and no one stopped him.

As he got nearer to Kyouraku, he began to wonder what he would say. Why was Kyouraku angry? He would have done the same thing in those circumstances. Except he can shunpo, thought Ukitake sadly. It was a turn of bad luck for him. What could he have done differently?

He trailed behind Kyouraku for some time, his thoughts running in circles. Twice he considered returning to the caravan without saying anything at all. Both times he remembered how Kyouraku had stormed off and felt his need to fix whatever had changed between them resurge.

So lost was he in his thoughts that he did not notice Kyouraku had stopped. He stepped lightly into the clearing where his friend stood and halted, still unsure of what to say.

When Kyouraku said nothing and didn't move, Ukitake felt his ire rise, and he felt he had to speak. "What is wrong with you, Shunsui?"

The other laughed quietly, looking at him in an odd way. "Nothing, of course."

The white-haired youth gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists. "Why, then, are you acting like someone ruined your favorite kimono? Or like you've got a stick up your—"

"Shut up." Kyouraku's face—damn his shunpo—was suddenly an inch in front of Ukitake's own. He grinned painfully. "You… you do not get to talk."

"What..."

"You almost DIED!" The other boy had run away again. He shouted the words from the other side of the clearing. He ran: up trees, in circles, out of and back into the clearing. The sind from his speed lifted Ukitake's hakama and the hair on his neck. When he stopped the shunpo to stand in front of Ukitake again, he seemed subdued. He looked at the ground.

"You were dead," he said quietly. "You stupid, stupid, naïve, brave son of a bitch. What the hell did you think you were doing, taking on a Hollow by yourself when you were already sick? When I finally found you—it's a good thing I could feel you from so far away, or else… You were bleeding all over, the wound on your back, and your head, and your mouth, and your hands… those kids were crying all over you, you wouldn't wake up and I thought… I thought…"

Ukitake stared at him. Kyouraku's breathing slowed gradually until it was normal. Then he looked up to stare at Ukitake.

"When Retsu-chan told me you were still alive, I no longer knew what to think or feel. I thought you were gone, and there was nothing I could do. And one day that's going to be true. One day you're going to be stupid and try to save someone when you can't, and then you'll be gone."

The anger was back. Ukitake ran and grabbed Kyouraku by the collar. "I hate that word," he hissed. "I'm not weak, dammit. Can't? I know my own damn limits. Don't treat me like I'm some sort of loser who can't take care of himself. I'm a shinigami." With that he let go of the taller boy and stepped back, drawing himself up to his full height. He stood proudly and ignored the pain. "I'm a shinigami. I could not get help in time. And I could do no less than protect them. You would have don the same. So don't tell me I can't." He spat out the word.

Now Kyouraku was at a loss for words. He tilted his head. "But… you were dead, Juu."

Ukitake smiled and shook his head. "No, I wasn't, you fool." He spread his arms. "You cannot bring someone back from death, and I am alive now. I never died."

Kyouraku shook his head. "You just—what if our positions had been reversed? How would you feel, in my place?"

Ukitake looked away and bit the corner of his lip pensively, trying to clear his mind of anger. He tried to picture what the situation would have looked like from a bystander's point of view—his flares in reiatsu during the fight, the Hollow's death, his haibyou coming back with a vengeance.

And then he thought of how he would feel if it were on eof his classmates—if it was Shunsui, his brother-in-arms, bleeding and unmoving and already mourned—and he shuddered a the image, his eyes closed. He shook his head. "I—" he tried. "I'm sorry, Shunsui. I think I can see how… I think I see, now, how that would upset you. But there really was nothing I could do! As soon as I heard Linai and kentou calling out—"

Kyouraku frowned and said, "Maybe you should have an escort when you need to travel, to keep you from doing stupid things like getting yourself killed." Ukitake gritted his teeth around a retort until he felt that the anger had left Kyouraku's reiatsu. Damn him, he was teasing him again.

He sighed in relief, and Kyouraku chuckled quietly. "Come on, Casanova. We'd better get you back to Unohana-senpai's tender care before she gets any angrier."

Ukitake warily spread his reiatsu to the nearby caravan and found that unohana was indeed angry that he had left. As soon as the reiatsus touched, he felt her relax considerably, though he was sure that could she reprimand him via the link she would have. "Hai," he agreed with his friend, and they set off together for the road.

This was written in bits and pieces during a class I had last semester, so I apologize for the lack of flow/continuity/general explanations. And the angst, but you must understand... I was Really Bored. Plus, I love these two! Definitely my favorite Bleach characters.

I do not own Bleach, or any recognizable names from that manga that appear in my story. This is fan-made and not intended for profit. Blah blah blah.