Knock, knock.

Ichigo put down his textbook, got up from his bed and strode across his new dorm to open the door. It was probably Yuzu, here to bring him the home-made dinner she'd promised him for his first day.

He was, pleasantly, wrong. Rukia stood before him in her Shinigami form. Instead of the look of glee she normally wore when she stole time away with him, this time she looked shocked.

"Ichigo, what are you wearing?" she asked.

Was it really so odd to see him dressed nicely outside of a school uniform?

The white collared shirt he'd already owned, but the sweater-vest he'd layered over it was something he'd bought specifically for graduate school. Entering a new school was a chance to make a new impression on people, so he decided that it was finally time to stop striking fear into people's hearts and start having an air about him that a husband should have. Sure, the pairs of vertical red and green stripes which ran from shoulder to hem on either side of the vest's collar seemed a bit Christmasy, but the red lion emblazoned on the left breast was surely enough to detract from that – and the fact that it was a sweater-vest.

Wait, she wasn't paying attention to the vest or its very manly red lion. She was staring straight into his...

Oh, dammit.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it," he said rather shamefully, removing the square-framed glasses from his face.

"Nothing? Since when do you wear glasses?" she asked. She'd clearly been having a slow week in Soul Society, because the prospect seemed to inspire a disproportionate level of amazement in her. Moreover, she seemed more amazed by their very presence than the fact that the frames were, embarrassingly, pink. Pink. He could only imagine why she wasn't pointing and laughing right at his face.

He ushered her inside and closed the door before going on. "Just this year, and it's only for reading," he justified, slipping them into the pocket of his white jeans. "Yuzu went to the optometrist with me and picked the frames, she said they looked good because my hair's so bright," he yammered quickly, past his rising shame. "I just wear them in my room," he went on. "I said I'd wear them and I knew she was dropping by tonight, so that's why—"

"I think they're nice," Rukia mercifully cut in. Ichigo was gobsmacked. He was so shocked that it deafened him to the statement she slipped in right after, under her breath: "Although the frames do make you look like Aizen."

Ichigo glided over to wrap her in a gentle hug, letting it say both I missed you and Thanks for not calling me a dork.

As she squeezed him back more tightly, she said into his chest, "I've seen you wear a Hollow Mask. Nothing will ever be worse than that."

Ichigo pulled away then, about to argue the merits of that mask and how it'd helped him save her life more than once, when he finally spotted the satchel hanging from his wife's right shoulder. Damn, maybe he'd need glasses for more than reading after all.

"Hm? What did you bring with you? Work?" In response, Rukia flicked him on the nose.

"What do you think I am? I'm no slacker, Ichigo, I finished my week's work before I came," she huffed, although unable to muster the anger she once could toward him.

"So Ukitake just let you go?" he asked while stepping back a few paces to avoid another stinging flick.

"Actually, he's trying to prepare Sentaro for vice-Captaincy when a position opens up, so he's been taking on some of my responsibilities."

Ichigo knew he should probably take that at face value, Ukitake's motive being purely to further Sentaro's career, but damn if he didn't still want to hug the man.

"So..." Ichigo chanced, getting back on track, "what did you bring?"

He was suddenly thankful anew to have Getsu around again. He blamed the Hollow internally for wanting the contents of the bag to be sexy nightwear.

Instead, out came one of his wife's many sketchbooks as well as an assortment of coloured markers. Oh boy.

Ichigo didn't know what to say to that. Thankfully, Rukia did. "I guessed that you would be studying, so I figured we could have a quiet night together." When Ichigo's look of befuddlement didn't fade, she added, "Besides, you said Yuzu was coming over, right?"

Oh. She was a genius. A genius in too much clothing, but still.

With newfound confidence, Ichigo donned his glasses once again as he laid himself on his bed, propped against the headboard for optimal reading. Rukia, in turn, laid across him with her head resting on his stomach, knees bent to use as an easel as she scribbled away at the sketchbook's pages. It was the most fun either of them had ever had being so quiet.

Surrounded by inky darkness, Grimmjow had the distinct feeling that he was being watched. No, stalked – hunted. He felt like a gazelle in the hungry sight of an unseen lioness, and his muscles refused to relax. He Ached all over in anticipation of even greater pain as he whipped his head hither and thither, desperately trying to get a lock on the presence that was working upon him like this. It always seemed to snake away just as he'd thought he'd found it, and taking steps in search of it made no difference. The blackness didn't give way to anything; he couldn't even be sure he was getting anywhere.

Then he heard it: a low, rumbling growl, altogether familiar and unsettling. But where had he heard it before?

From out of the darkness it issued again, seeming to bleed from every direction as if he were already in the belly of a great, growling beast. That couldn't be right, he was in the Shoten. He could hardly move on his bed let alone escape his room to be gobbled up by some huge Hollow or something once he was free. Again it came, like the steady ebb and flow of the ocean, rattling his skull and causing his teeth to itch as they buzzed like little tuning forks from the omnipresent noise. It was striking even deeper than merely his bones, though. Dammit, what was it about this sound?

As soon as it came to him, the sound abruptly changed. Still a rumble, it lost its monotony and took on the lilting quality of language. At first he couldn't make anything of it, but after straining, he was able to pull something from it:

Let me out.

Wait, he knew that voice. It was oddly deep and slightly tinny as if resounding through a metal tube, but he definitely recognized its owner: himself. Whatever was out there shared his voice.

So you can hear me, came the doppelganger tone in his ear. It seemed...taunting. Can you see me yet?

And just like that, Grimmjow was finally able to pinpoint a shape in the dark. It was black on black so that it seemed more like the contour of someone moving behind a curtain than a separate entity. However, as it slunk about under his steady gaze, it seemed to resolve, its form gradually pulling away from the dark until he could see the unmistakable silhouette of a large cat. A very large cat. A—

A white jaguar stepped into view as if out of the shadows, looking like it'd been build of bony plates interlocking to form the animal's shape. It walked silently on black paws and glared back and Grimmjow with eyes like those of his own reflection.

It spoke. "Look what's become of you," it mocked.

Grimmjow decided to give his surroundings another visual once-over, starting to think this was a fever dream. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to ask you to let me out," it said simply, sitting on its haunches. Did it want him to attack the Shoten?

"And how do I do that?" Grimmjow asked, intrigued. Was there a way he could reclaim his former strength through this...thing?

Then the jaguar chucked at him condescendingly. "That's something you have to figure out for yourself," it said, harshly, as if in reprimand. Then it moved its lips again, but this time nothing at all came out.

"What?"

Same thing. The jaguar had lost its voice or something. It looked like it was trying to say something, but the silence between them remained unbroken. Then it shook its head like a disappointed teacher, turned and stalked away.

"Hey, wait, come back here!" Grimmjow demanded. But it was too late: the jaguar faded back into the dark and was gone, and he was alone again.

He opened his eyes. After dreaming of such darkness, the overhead light and illuminated his room in the Shoten felt like the raw, burning sun on his eyes. He turned onto his stomach to avoid it and blinked into his small pillow a few times until his eyes stopped stinging. But as he turned back over, he found himself beat by the time he was on his back again. Holy hell! Had his time in the desert of Hueco Mundo really done that much damage?

Most outsiders wouldn't know, but the sand of Hueco Mundo was actually more like rice. It was edible, but instead of absorbing moisture, it absorbed reiryoku. Thirstily. Anything weak enough that became submerged in it, such as the body of a starved Hollow, had its energy sapped. It was dangerous, but it also meant that midsized Hollows could temporarily quiet the roars of their inner hunger by swallowing it in handfuls. Larger Hollows who couldn't seem to ever eat enough were known to build cavernous burrows deep within it by eating their way through, providing them with sustenance and shelter.

After that bastard Nnoitra had blindsided him, Grimmjow eventually awoke, barely, to find himself in pitch dark. He immediately knew where he was, and that he wasn't yet too deep, but hadn't the strength to get out; such was the work of the granules on his body. But he could feel an itch in his chest, because with each unconscious breath, he'd taken the sand in as well. The sand without would drink in his energy, only to be drawn in with his rattling breath and be rapidly burned away by his Hollow metabolism, replenishing him just enough to continue the cycle without him dying. He was mummified, barely alive, in a thin layer of the soul-sucking sand.

Some might think it a miracle, but the sand was indeed still doing its best to drain him completely. He would have certainly died were it not for his indomitable will, his urge to live. His urge to get out and one day fight Ichigo Kurosaki again.

For months, years, Grimmjow would drift in and out of consciousness while so entombed in the sand. Sometimes it was because he felt a spike in reiatsu above him – very familiar reiatsu. Sometimes it was because two Hollows were roaring as they fought a distance away. Whatever the reason, whenever he awoke it lit a flame deep in his gut, and life filled him up again, though unaccompanied by strength.

Then, one day, he heard a digging sound above him. To a man trapped like a fly in amber for years, it was a relaxing sound. Either it meant he would soon be free, or more likely, that he'd be eaten. Either way, it was better than spending the rest of eternity trapped between life and death. The digging went on for long enough for him to drift in and out of hearing it—he must have sunk deeper into the sand than he'd realized over time.

Then a hand grabbed his. A warm hand, not a Hollow's or an Arrancar's, whose flesh was characteristically chilled. He was pulled into the blinding light of the lonely silver moon and flopped helplessly upon the sand. His eyes wouldn't focus at first, but that didn't matter since he spent his first minutes thereafter facing the ground. He'd rolled over to cough up the sand still in his lungs which had yet to burn off. It came out the colour of soot, drained of all its stored energy in a reversal of roles. He collapsed face-first after his spasm and woke up sometime later in his room at the Shoten.

He wondered why as he stared up at the wood ceiling, still panting lightly from the chore that turning over had sadly become. Why had the hat man saved him from the clutches of undeath? He knew from Aizen that the guy was a schemer, but what was his plan for a drained and useless husk of a former Eespada? And why let him keep his zanpakuto at his side if he could neither draw nor even find the strength to lift it? Some kind of motivation?

His attention was suddenly pulled from these questions as he felt happenings a distance away outside. Four weak flames flickered to life – Shinigami entering the Living World – and then were snuffed out. Except he hadn't felt any Hollows at all near them, or their gateways open back up after closing behind them; they had simply...

Ichigo found himself standing across from Getsu, his Inner Hollow, and realized that he was now asleep.

The Hollow had changed since Ichigo had last seen it around ten months prior, when he'd saved it from destruction. Usually it mirrored Ichigo's appearance entirely in bone white, but now he seemed an even more accurate reflection of his human. His shihakusho was now coloured black just like Ichigo's and he too bore wrappings that could be seen on his arms, legs, chest and neck. Where Ichigo's were red, though, Getsu's were blue, like his tongue. Also new to him was his expression of...worry?

"Ichigo..." rang his metallic voice as if in shock. "I remember..."

"What?" Ichigo asked. But before he was even finished the word, his Inner World had begun to move, as if drawing back and away from him. The horizontal buildings whose tips disappeared into the vast blue distance seemed to rapidly draw closer to Getsu before overtaking him and rushing past Ichigo. It was as if the whole world had become a tunnel that they were moving through. Soon enough, he could even see out the other end: the street on which the Shoten sat swiftly grew from a pinpoint of light to replace the receding scenery around them. In less than thirty seconds, he and Getsu were suddenly standing there, in front of the Shoten, instead.

Taking in his surroundings, Ichigo noticed nothing unusual that Getsu might be trying to show him. The Shoten never changed, inside or out.

"Getsu," he said, the name feeling clunky in his mouth, "what's going on?"

"Ichigo, I – ––––"

Had the infant cries suddenly piercing the air been what had drowned the Hollow out? Ichigo couldn't actually be sure, but he guessed that whatever had Getsu so enthralled was worth checking out for himself. The Hollow was staring off toward the Shoten where Ichigo realized the wails of the baby were issuing. Why?

Ichigo walked over to the storefront, unnoticed by Urahara. Though the man had his back to Ichigo, the young man knew that the former Captain would sense him if this were real. A memory, maybe? Getsu's?

Then Urahara turned to reveal the wailing infant he cradled in his arms. The boy had short, light blonde hair which jutted out in stubby spikes. Ichigo instantly recognized his infant self, whose hair would darken soon enough into its unmistakable shade of orange. He'd never known that Urahara had taken care of him that far back though, or that he was such a noisy brat. He just wouldn't stop crying. Maybe he had colic.

Urahara continued to shush the boy and bounce him gingerly up and down, but to no avail. He brought Ichigo up to his chest so that the baby was free to wail over his shoulder as he gently caressed his back. It wasn't any use either. Baby Ichigo was officially the worst, adult Ichigo decided.

Then suddenly a pair of sliding paper doors appeared in the middle of the courtyard out of thin air – a Senkaimon. Of course the astounding sight still wasn't enough to quiet baby Ichigo, but what followed was certainly enough to stun his adult counterpart.

Rukia stepped out from between the doors.

Struck stalk still with surprise, it was a chore just for Ichigo to turn his head to face Getsu, to confirm with the Hollow if this was real, if it had actually happened. If they'd truly met before that night in his fifteenth year. But instead of the Hollow, he saw Zangetsu, having apparently taken his place.

"Ossan..." Ichigo began, but stopped when his sunglasses-wearing, shaggy-haired zanpakuto spirit started a slow walk toward him. And with each deliberate step, the world of the past disintegrated behind him, the scenery shattering and falling in shards to give way to white nothingness like large reflecting mirrors breaking on the floor. By the time Zangetsu was less than a foot away from Ichigo, both the Shoten and the world in which it existed had vanished.

Zangetsu gave Ichigo a tired, disappointed look before he put his hand over his wielder's eyes.

And Ichigo woke up.

The first thing he noticed was how cold his chest was. There was nothing to cover it, be it shirt or blanket or his wife, who stood gazing out the window with an ominous expression. But that wasn't what worried Ichigo just then.

"Rukia, don't stand there when you're naked," he told her as he slid off the bed. He brought the blanket with him over his shoulders like a heavy cloak, and when he reached her, draped it over hers so that they were cocooned together in it.

"I'm not in my gigai, nobody can see me," she pointed out as she slipped a hand out from under their shared overgarment to lightly touch the windowpane with her slender fingers. As if...

"What's wrong?" Ichigo asked, peering out into the darkness with his eyes and sixth sense, trying to pinpoint what had his wife in such a mood.

"I felt something a moment ago."

"What?"

"A squad of Shinigami...they just..."

"Vanished?" Byakuya repeated as the messenger maintained her low bow before him.

"Yessir," she confirmed. "A squadron sent to the Living World, just an hour ago."

"You're sure?"

"Yessir, the Twelfth Division checked and rechecked the data. They've completely disappeared."

"Where from?"

"Karakura, sir."

Byakuya was suddenly thankful that his back was to the messenger at that moment. She didn't see his practiced Kuchiki facade slip, his eyes momentarily widen in shock. He had wondered when she'd first arrived why he in particular was being informed, but now it made sense. However, was she reporting to him because he had his sister in Karakura to worry about, or Ichigo Kurosaki's sister? Did she know? Did they all know?

He had to push past it, he decided. He had to keep gathering information and fast, so that his surprise would not be too obvious.

"To which Division did they belong?"

"Unassigned, sir," replied the messenger. "They were a training squad from the Shin'o Academy."

That was interesting. "Does the Twelfth have any theories as to what might have caused their disappearance?" By now, Byakuya's questions were merely distractions from the fact that he was already frantically writing up a request for a gigai from the Twelfth and calculating when and for how long he could take time away from the Sixth to make the trip to Karakura.

"In fact, they believe they know the reason exactly," said the messenger darkly.

"And?" He had already folded and was placing the request in an envelope. The messenger's answer came just as he was pressing on the spot of hot wax with his Kuchiki sigil stamp to seal it.

"They believe it to be the work of Quincy, Captain."

For the second time, Byakuya found solace in his back having faced the messenger, this time when the stamp slipped from his fingers. He caught it just before it could clack upon his desk.

He placed it back in its holder and turned to hand the messenger the envelope. "Deliver this to the Twelfth immediately," was all he said.

Her robotic response of "Yessir" barely made it through the doorway as he slid the door closed upon it.