Pain, Kuchiki Byakuya decided, was an insufferably base phenomenon.
Anything else was a controllable element. Discomfort could be chosen or discarded at will. As could most emotions; anger, lust, fear, hatred. Jealousy. Not to mention such basic experiences as weakness or hunger or exhaustion or delight. Any of them, all of them, easily eliminated, pushed away, ignored...given the proper fortitude of mind.
There was no question as to duty, or honor, or propriety; each could be executed with prefunctory perfection, at all times and under any circumstance - one simply had to be willing to accept the consequences, no matter what. And remember - always - that the cost of adhering to Law was never so great as the cost of breaking from its strictures.
Yes, pain was a thoroughly inexcusable rebel, coming and going when it wished and caring nothing for the sensibilites of higher beings. Caring not the least for rank or breeding or the cool dispassion which nobility so easily claimed. So the crown prince of the Kuchiki clan thought, immersed as he was in a sea of torment...and as his mind submerged beneath its surface and started to drift into the intoxicating thrall of agony, another insufferable thought came to mind:
Love.
Love was another facet of the heart, of the spirit, that refused to stay within bounds. Refused to adhere to rules. It also could not be chosen or discarded at will...no, that was not quite right.
Chosen it could be...but once done so, discarded never.
For that matter, he was hard-pressed to name any differences between them at all. Pain and love, love and pain - one and the same.
And death. The final piece in the trilogy of chaos that so unfortunately accompanied the strange existence called life. Real life, afterlife, any kind of life, it was always sealed by death, the third and final constant for any living soul.
Pain. Love. Death.
All so terribly inconveneint. So uncouth. So ignoble.
So goddamned disastrously inevitable.
As Kuchiki Byakuya lay, broken and bleeding and barely conscious on the battlefield, his final hazy gaze resting on the gates of Heaven itself as war raged around him, he absently wondered which of the three Constants was going to claim him, now, at the end...
And then he wondered nothing at all, as a wash of agony swept over him, searing his mind with the whiteness of oblivion. Byakuya submitted to the irresistable tide and let it sweep him away...
For a long time he knew nothing. Everything was clear, and soft, and soothing. Somewhere, he couldn't tell where, music was playing. Something sad and sweet and so heart-rendingly glorious that it nearly brought tears to eyes that had always been dry.
He heard voices, too. Some that he recognized - his mother's voice when she would sing him to sleep as a child - some he didn't. For a long time some of the voices seemed to be clamoring, begging for his attention, but he ignored them. After a while, they faded away and it was his long-deceased father's voice that drifted around him.
"Duty, Byakuya." The elder Kuchiki had loved nothing else, raised his son to follow in his footsteps..."Without duty we are nothing."...and Byakuya had followed, with only a stumble or two along the way..."You do not wish to refuse your duty, do you?"
...Hisana's face appeared before him, looking sad and - for some reason - forgiving...
"Byakuya!" His father's voice barked, the echo from the grave penetrating the gauzy haze around him. "Your duty! Will you complete your duties as a Kuchiki?"
Byakuya stirred, the harmony around him going slightly discordant. "Duty..."
"Or will you now, at the end, fail your family and your clan?" His father had always been merciless in life; wherever he was now, he had not softened.
Byakuya felt the inevitable need to respond; the beautiful peace of this white place shimmered and weakened as he struggled to find his voice.
"Duty...yes..."
The voices - all of them, including his father's - faded away. Hisana stayed for a while, but then she too faded into the white, lazy haze, leaving him alone. What peace should have been his was shattered as thoughts of his duty and station drifted through his mind, shackling his conscience with guilt. Slowly, he felt heaviness begin to return to his limbs, sensation and consciousness descending upon him again as he sank into the encroaching darkness...
The first thing that intruded on his consciousness was the inevitable sensation of pain. It swelled and receded, an orchestra of unpleasant sensations that cut through his mindless drifting like a sawblade...for that matter, like a zanpaktou mercilessly honed and meticulously trained. That sensation had its own power, its own rhythm, and for a long time Byakuya was awash in it, thrumming along with its pulse like a metronome. A song worth avoiding at all costs, in the same measure that it was irresistably enthralling.
For what seemed like an eternity, he rode those pulses like a surfer rode sun-kissed waves...
But a blissful, harmonious end was not his lot.
With infinite brevity, other sensations slowly invaded him.
The hardness of the matress beneath him. He was sure it was the finest available, certain that it was the most luxurious Fourth had to offer. He was equally sure that it was the hardest surface he'd reposed upon in centuries.
The rough fabric of the sheet over him was next; he could practically feel it scratching, could almost calculate the embrassingly low thread-count. He didn't know if that fact spoke more of his own pride or the poverty of his keepers. Not that either mattered all that much.
Slowly, other things became reality. The sounds in the air. The ambient temperature. He absently noted that several machines were monitoring his laboring critical functions. It wasn't long before he could discern the slow drip of medication into his veins, or the hushed voices of medical attendants as they buzzed in and out of his room.
Still, it seemed like forever before he could muster any kind of physical action on his part.
His first laborious effort was to open his eyes.
It was dark. Silent. A rush of emotions swept through him, all carefully categorized and supressed, nothing betraying his outer calm but the slow drift of thick, black eyelashes as he glanced around the pervading blackness.
He was fairly certain that he had controlled his breathing, that the only thing betraying his consciousness was his hooded, seeking eyes, but a stir in the corner of the room told him that even that slight motion had been detected.
He forstalled any banality by speaking first.
"I live?"
There was a minute hesitation before a resolute, velvety voice canvassed the darkness. "Yes, Kuchiki-sama."
"Call Unohana-taicho." A fair approximation of his usual dominance laced his tone as he struggled to hide how out-of-breath such communication left him.
Again, a quiet stir. "Kuchiki-sama, it is not advisable for you to expend your energy-"
"Call her." Briefer, but stronger. The tone resonated in the room in something close to the command of which he was capable, and after a long moment his attendant opened the door and slipped outside.
Another century passed while he waited in the dark, drifting in and out of coherence. As the door opened again, its intrusion was accompanied by a familiar spirit-signature.
The soft, steely tone wormed into his eardrums. "Kuchiki-san? You requested me." It was not a question, and the master healer calmly waited.
It took longer than he thought it would to find the breath for speech. "I live - how goes the battle?"
"Decided, and favorably," came the cool if brief reply. "You will heal, with time. Please rest, and I will attend to you when I can." A warm wash of lavender power-signature, the light of a door opening, and Retsu was gone.
He would have been affronted, had he the energy. As it was, the curt exchange had all but expended him. For an indeterminate time, he drifted, unaware of much else besides the velvety darkness around him and the various pains that assaulted him, even muted as they were by his heavy medication. When the agony became too much to bear, a cool hand graced his brow, more times than he could count, and inevitably he drifted away into healing oblivion...
Byakuya couldn't have guessed how long he faded in and out, how many fevers assaulted him and then slowly retreated, but finally came a time when he was once again coherent. In the dark, he reached and felt a presence nearby.
He opened his eyes; it was moderately easier this time, his vision focusing on the face of someone hovering by his bedside, violet eyes heavy with concern. The soothing, white place he'd been still haunted him, and for a moment he was confused.
"Hisana?" Something in his chest swelled as he felt a tiny hand slip into his own; with all the strength he possessed, he closed his fingers around it. "Hisana..." Words failed him; as it turned out he was glad he got no more out.
A voice, familiar but not Hisana's, spoke softly. "Nii-sama..."
Instantly, Byakuya was chagrined, that gentle reminder more than enough to bring him back to his senses. "Rukia," he managed, trying to wrap shreds of propriety around himself. "The battle..."
"Was won, Brother," Rukia replied softly. Something in her voice sounded pained. "Please, you must rest. Unohana says you are not yet out of the woods."
"I can't...I must..." Something was bothering him, something he couldn't explain; Byakuya felt like there was something terribly important he had forgotten. "My duty," he muttered, unsure of why that seemed so dreadfully important.
A shadow passed through Rukia's eyes, something close to guilt, and she gripped his hand tighter. "I told them, Nii-sama...I tried to stop them. But they wouldn't listen to me-" The door opened then, but instead of Unohana, the young attendant girl from before slipped into the room. Rukia's grip tightened further, but she seemed to know the girl. Rukia addressed her in a soft hiss. "Where are the Elders? He's awake and asking questions..."
The girl shook her head resolutely. "They won't come, not until tomorrow."
Rukia gulped, looking desperate. "They must come, they have to tell him-"
A shushed, whispered arguement ensued, trying his patience. Byakuya tried to demand what was going on, demand an explanation, but his strength failed him and again he floated in and out of consciousness. When he regained his senses, the young attendant was still in the room, watching him from the corner. Rukia was no where to be seen.
His voice came out stronger this time, stronger than it had been in ages. "Where am I? Where is Unohana-?"
"Rest, Kuchiki-sama," the girl's velvety voice all but commanded him. 'I will not leave you..."
"Unohana," he insisted, already tiring, but the voice brazenly refuted him.
"She is elsewhere, and quite presumed upon. I can see to your needs, Kuchiki-sama, anything your require..."
"I require Unohana," he insisted, before painful coughing assaulted him and before the fit passed he could taste blood and felt a cool hand on his forehead. Straining for control, for coherence, he forced his vision to clear and found himself staring into eyes the color of onyx, firm and resolute. For an instant he allowed the unexpected face to mezmerize him before he coughed again and, this time, struggled against the strong hands that seemed determined to attend his every need. "Fetch-"
"I will not fetch anyone, Kuchiki-sama," the rich, firm voice stated irrevocably, tiny lines of strain marring the delicately couched, long-lashed eyes. A slender hand brushed a strand of ebony hair behind a pink earlobe. "I will not leave your side, Byakuka-sama."
Staring at the unknown face, Byakuka coughed again, painfully, before managing a stone-cold sneer. "Do not defy me, child. Do you know who I am?"
Black eyes met his, and the woman inexplicably refused to budge. "I do indeed, know who you are, and for my part I am no child. And I will not leave you."
Outrage lent him more energy than he'd had in days, and with a derisive twist of his features Byakuya fairly spit. "I am the heir to the Kuchiki throne," he managed to resonate, "and you are nothing more than-"
A coughing fit overtook him, and when it cleared those perspicacious eyes were drilling into him.
"Kazumi, Kuchiki Byakuya," the woman said, meeting his eyes resolutely. "I am Kuchiki Kazumi. You might as well know my name, at least. More can come later."
That name meant nothing to him, which made no sense given the surname. "How is it you claim that title; you are not a Kuchiki," he managed to grate derisively.
Those black eyes saddened a bit, but held firm. "It is a name I have only borne for only days." She patted his hand sympathetically. "Please, Byakuya-sama, I beg you to rest; everything will be explained in time..."
"Explain now!" he managed to roar, even though it drained most of his enery; something in the back of his mind was screaming for his attention, demanding he remember something, but he couldn't grab hold of it...
Kazumi placed a firm hand on his arm, onyx eyes meeting his with sympathy but without hesitation, and she quietly spoke.
"With respect, Byakuya-sama...my deepest apologies, but as of four days ago...I am your wife."
The darkness swirled up, and Byakuya allowed it to claim him.