A/N: Random thought turned into a oneshot. A sort of what if, if you will.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, nor am I making any profit from this piece.

Facing the Dark

Shit, so this is what it feels like to die. No warmth, no light, just a growing sense of apathy. He could not bring himself to care anymore, the fire of his blood staining the cool stone under him, a scarlet flower born of his death. He strained for air, fighting even as the capacity for breath yielded to the liquid pooling in his lungs. How pathetic, I'm dying choking on my own blood. I didn't even kill the fucking bastard.

Eyes seemed to peek out of the darkness, sharp inquiries that he felt on his skin. The rubble around him no doubt hosted a hoard of minor hollows, too scared to emerge after the fight. In a field of broken stone and skeleton houses, Kurosaki Ichigo stared at the stars above him. It was an unbroken blanket of light, the stars blurring together in his fuzzy vision. The wispy sighs of the night barely moved the clouds over the night sky. Ichigo found his gaze drawn to the spaces between the stars. Is that where I'll end up?

No, he would be reborn as some nameless soul in the Soul Society, alone, no memory of friends and family – all those he had fought to protect. An ultimate mockery, he would live again, but all that made up his essence would be lost in the transition between lives. Maybe some fragments would survive the void, but anything that did would only taunt and tease him. Would his future self wonder what made him wake up screaming in terror, or why the phantom pain of a sword slipping through his gut felt so familiar? Would it drive him into the Thirteen Court Guard, or would he wander the Rukongai a purposeless thug? Either way, Ichigo would lose the ties that defined him, becoming that nameless being.

But wasn't he already that nameless one, lost to the darkness and the skittering of hollows, or was that someone else?–it was getting harder to imagine that future, or any future. Ichigo could almost feel his sense of time narrowing to the present, the tentative thudding of his heart filling his head with a strange seductive rhythm, speeding and slowing with each beat.

Rukia, Renji, Chad, Orihime, Ishida – where are you? Didn't we promise each other we'd always be there for each other? Damn, he did not want to go out this way, even his goat of an old man would be welcome company. If he was going into the darkness then he wanted to know they were at least safe. He was going to die with only hollows to provide distraction in his final moments.

No. I can't fucking die like this. I won't. Ichigo tried to rally his body to move, but the strings of control had been cut between his brain and muscles. Zangestu twitched in his grasp, but that was the most he could manage.

Zangestu. Maybe he was not alone after all. They had always fought together, now they died together. Closing his eyes on the starry expanse above him, he asked in a tired mental voice. Zangestu?

The softest whisper of an answer reverberated from the depths of his soul. I am broken…

With almost an impossible effort Ichigo raised his hand so Zangestu entered his limited range of view. All that remained of the sword was the hilt and an inch of charred blade. Ichigo's own soul was shattered, lacking the very power to support Zangestu. He had lost his zanpakutou again at a time when he needed the most.

Thank you. It was an honor to wield you Zangestu.

Goodbye…

Zangestu crumbled in his grip, breaking into a stream of sparkling particles. The breeze caught them up, tumbling them against the backdrop of the night. As they dispersed, they became part of the stars, indistinguishable from those dispassionate lights. Ichigo reached up, trying to grasp their faint luminance, wrap it around his soul to fill the gap that Zangestu had left, but no matter how far he stretched they remained just beyond reach. Closing his fist, he let his hand drop. Zangestu was gone.

He was just a man now, stripped of his shinigami powers, facing the dark. Nothing to hide behind, he was alone facing death. It was not an opponent he could reason with, even one he could fight. No Kenpachi where he could turn to Zangestu for help, no Grimmjaw where his inner hollow had lent its strength. For the first time in his life, Ichigo's courage failed him.

Blind terror clawed at his heart, speeding up the process of spilling his blood onto the stone. An animalistic howl of panic ripped from his throat. Instinct screamed at him to run, to try and escape. Run. Hide. Don't let it catch you. Ichigo's battered body twitched in response, a travesty of motion. Run. He could not move. Hide. There was no place to hide from death. Don't let it catch you. It had already caught him, twining claws into his soul and dragging it out of his body. He was alone, except for death, death lurking in every atom of his body. Alone.

"Stop moaning. You're making a fool of yourself."

Alone.

"And you're annoying," it said, irritated.

Then who was speaking? An imagined phantom would not tell his terrified mind to shut up, his sense of humor had died long before Zangestu had. He could not force his eyes to focus, but the stars above him had gone dark with the appearance of the voice; someone was standing over him. The silver light of the moon shone from the patch of darkness. But that was impossible, there was no moon tonight. Then that meant it was silver hair, hanging no doubt around the face of Ichimaru Gin, come to torment him.

"Go away," he choked out, blood painting his lips crimson as he spoke. The contrast made his face even paler under the disperse glow of the stars. But even as he spoke, Ichigo knew that he did not want Ichimaru to leave.

Fear did funny things to the soul. Ichimaru was the enemy, but he was also human. He was a companion other than the slicing tendrils of death that flitted in and out of his range of vision. That companionship was all too tempting, cutting across the now devalued tenants of life; enemy, friend, they were all the same when the end was near? Ichigo was dying, what more could Ichimaru do to him?

Ichimaru chuckled; nudging Ichigo's broken body with a foot, "How are you going to make me? Your time is up."

"Just go away," Ichigo found the words harder and harder to utter, both his body and his emotions betraying him. In truth, that was the last thing he wanted Ichimaru to do.

"As you wish," Ichimaru straightened, his face melting and blurring as he moved outside the range of Ichigo's focus. Ichigo could hear Ichimaru's footsteps retreating down the broken street, slowly, the battle had already been won; there was no need to hurry, nor could he.

Ichigo was left alone, staring at the stars above him; the little pinpricks of light were even more indistinguishable than the face of Ichimaru. Distant and cold the stars watched him; whatever comfort they once had provided as a child gone, they were implacable observers to his fate now. He felt empty, stripped all emotions. The courage that once had been a solid pillar of support on which he based his decisions lay shattered at the depths of his soul. He was no coward, he knew that, but Aizen had left him to die a slow, painful death. It was a death where he had been given a full allotment of time to contemplate his fate. Aizen could not have been crueler.

"Wait," his croak was barely audible over the clicks of the expectant hollows, but Ichimaru's staccato steps slowed, then stopped. Ichigo could imagine him; head cocked to one side, that half smile on his face, expectant. "Please…," Ichigo did not have the courage to utter the rest of the sentence, the last remnant of his pride denied he had even thought them.

"Yes?" Ichimaru's voice was soft, for once lacking its mocking edge.

"I don't-," Ichigo mouthed, uncertain if the man could even hear him.

"You don't want to die alone. You want me to stay with you, don't ya?" He paused for a moment, a moment that for Ichigo stretched on into eternity, and then the man took a ragged breath, continuing, "I suppose I could stay with you. Aizen-sama won't be needing me now."

Slow footsteps came closer now, moving Ichimaru back into Ichigo's fading vision. The man carefully settled, cross legged, next to him. A silence fell between them punctuated only by the rasp of Ichigo's labored lungs. It was ironic; goat-face had given him enough knowledge from working in the clinic to know exactly how he would die. The wound in his gut, high on the right side had pierced his liver and probably had nicked his lung as well. He was fortunate that Aizen had not pierced him several inches over, or he would have died as his own stomach acid had eaten him alive. Instead it would be a quieter, slower. Academics had even dredged up old Latin tombs to give his death a name, exsanguination. As more of his blood graced the ground beneath him, his body would go into shock, trying desperately to compensate for the decreased volume in his veins. His extremities would be deprived of oxygen rich blood as his body struggled to protect his brain and heart. As the blood loss reached critical levels even they would suffer, and he would experience decreased mental function. Because his lung had been compromised it would be a morbid race between the blood filling lungs and his labored heart. Eventually one would win, and he would be dead.

Ichimaru started to hum, a senseless little tune that grated on what little nerves Ichigo had left. He may have consented to stay, but he would make Ichigo regret that decision for the rest of his life – of course, it would not be long by any measure.

An enemy to the end, Ichigo thought fuzzily. It was strange, the pain had left him now, and he felt light, as if his body was already floating away to the stars. Most of all, he just wanted to sleep. He had heard death described as falling into a sleep from which you never awoke. As a child that had always scared him, many nights he had refused to fall asleep, afraid that death would take him in the night. Now, it was a comfort – strange how one's priorities changed.

Ichimaru started to laugh, not his usual mocking chuckle, but a sad, slow laugh. The laugh of a man who knows too much and wishes he did not. "You aren't the only one you know."

"What?" Ichigo said. It was more of a thought than spoken word.

"Dying. You aren't the only one dying," Ichimaru answered the half-spoken question, his voice hitching on last word. "Aizen-sama—Well, he wasn't too happy with me after what I did to him. Got one last hit on me before…" He trailed off, apparently looking at the stars.

"Aizen…dead?" Ichigo forced out. This time his question was audible, causing Ichimaru to start.

"Thought you were dead. Still holding in there eh?" Ichimaru asked needlessly before continuing, "Yeah, I got him from behind, not the most honorable thing I've ever done, but figured it'd be better than the alternative. I like living too much. He would've killed me anyway now that he'd won—didn't need me anymore."

Ichigo felt a measure of satisfaction upon hearing Ichimaru's words. They were filtered and fractured in his hearing, but he understood one fact very clearly. Aizen was dead. He had succeeded in that regard, or at least his friends were safe. Peace suffused him as he stopped fighting. It was alright, he could go now. That thing that had always drove him, the desire—no, the need—to protect his friends had been fulfilled. It was up to them now to protect themselves; he had done all that he could. It was the last thought he would ever have.

His body, perhaps understanding his thoughts on its own basic level, let the last of its stopgap measures fade. His heart racing, lungs laboring, Ichigo Kurosaki passed from one world to the next. And in the end, it was a tie.

Ichimaru watched the last bit of life fade from the orange-headed boy in front of him. Then his snake eyes darted to the horizon, there something akin to a thousand stars shone. From where Ichigo lay, it had been just outside of his range of vision.

It was not the moon or the sun, but rather the newly crowned king of the Soul Society. Aizen Sousuke had been reborn.

Ichimaru sighed, grimacing as it pulled at the wound in his side. He could feel the acid start to eat away at the tissues of his intestines. He had been truthful in one thing, he was dying. It would be the death that Aizen had been merciful not to grant the boy, but one appropriate for a traitor in his ranks.

Well now that he thought about it, he had lied to the boy in only one regard. He had tried, but had failed to kill the newly crowned king. The boy deserved a little peace. Didn't he, eh Shinsou? I wish I had someone to lie to me.

Not waiting for a response, he lurched to his feet. He grunted at the pain increased tenfold. Cradling his side protectively, he set his back to the glowing horizon and began to walk. His stride was strong at first, but soon he began to stumble. It was first over the rubble that covered everything, then as his strength waned, over his own feet and imagined faults in the road.

He would die with as much distance between him and Aizen as possible.

In the end, when the hollows came for his body, he was smiling.

F/N: Would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading!