Author's Note: Thank you Shadowpain, Hapezibah, Icyangel, Splitheart, Metsfan, Huan and Bakane for the reviews. Goran – yes, it's easy to forget Rukia in all this, but I promise her story is only going to make sense in the context of Hisana's. I tried v hard to make the two girls' stories depend on each other. And awwww to the couple of people who have contacted me to ask if I could maybe let Hisana live. *Points fingers wildly at Kubo* It's all HIS fault. Not me!

An accompanying image for this chapter should be: "Byakuya x Hisana" by Randomisfun on DeviantArt. I actually wrote the chapter before I saw the image, but it is almost exactly what I saw in my head.

She did not visit Rukongai again that spring.

Nor would she do so when summer came. A recurrent, flu-like illness kept her house-bound throughout the warm months. She arranged to return to the Fourth Squad barracks to meet with Unohana and when the day came, she organised for the carriage to meet her at the gates of the mansion.

She couldn't even walk the length of the lawn.

Her long walk ended on a bench overlooking one of the flowerbeds. Involuntarily one hand strayed to her throat, her fingers carressing the skin; she could feel her breath grinding there, bubbling inside her. She pressed the same hand to her chest, doubled over and coughed weakly until she finally hawked up blood, then slumped back. This did not feel real. This could not be real. The gates were only twenty paces away. She could recall floating, half-drowned and helpless in the Rukon canal. On that day, the bank had been about the same distance away and she had mustered strength from nowhere then. So she could do so now, for sure. She'd always found a way. Always.

She didn't move.

And all at once, it crashed home; she didn't need to move. She'd didn't need to visit Unohana or pick up more medicine. Because there wasn't a damn thing that Unohana could do.

A few of the bees that had made it through this dreary summer were buzzing over the flowers. She watched them, feeling oddly relieved that she had made a decision.

When she looked up though, Byakuya was watching her from the pathway. It was clear from his expression that he had seen her trying to leave. He's going to come over here and ask questions, she thought.

He approached, but said nothing. And now he was standing over her, blocking out the sunlight, as beautiful now as the day she had met him. Though dressed in the robes of a shinigami, his hair was loose over his shoulders as if he had come from dressing. And perhaps he had; perhaps he had been watching her from the window.

We can sit it out another day, she thought. We can still walk together in the garden. We can keep pretending. We really can.

She looked up and tried to smile at him.

And then she did a very rare thing. She told him the truth:

"I don't think I'm going to find a way out of this one, Byakuya-sama."

He stared at her. His lips parted in the beginnings of a question, but then he closed his eyes and his smooth face broke apart. She caught him as he fell to his knees; caught his head in her hands and kissed his face, tasting the fresh tears. Apalled by them. How could she have done this: this man! And yet nothing she could do, not the kisses nor her desperate attempts to brush the tears from his cheeks could pull him back from the depths of this abyss. He buried his head in her lap. His sobbing was a harsh sound. "No," she said. To her surprise, the voice that emerged from her lips was full of the strength she thought she had lost: "No. Don't you dare, Byakuya-sama. If you believe for one moment that I can do this on my own then you are a stupid fool. Look at me. I said, look at me!" He looked up and she put her hands on his cheeks and spoke quickly: "How can I carry on if I lose you here? You don't weep. You don't give up. You are going to walk with me to the bitter end because I swear, I will not do this alone."

He turned away. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his neck. Breathed him in. There would be no world without him in it. She felt certain of that now. No eternal return and no afterlife beyond this one.

If there had been, she wouldn't have wanted it.