I very slowly rose to my feet and started for the bathroom, and said because I could feel three pairs of eyes burning into my back. "I've got a bit of a stomach ache. I'll be in the bathroom for a while." And with that I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I wasn't sure if this plan would work, and even if it did how long I would have before Ichigo would figure it out. I listened to Yoso as she quietly explained what I needed to do, she wanted to help me sneak out. I was able to force myself out of my body, and carefully lie it on the floor, infusing some of my reiatsu into it so I'd have time to get away before anyone could notice I was gone.

Then I shut my eyes, imagined the wall wasn't there, and stepped right through, and I was outside. I shot off into a random direction, knowing full well Justin would follow me. I just had to get him as far away from Orihime's as I could first. As I got to the hillside on the outskirts of town, he caught up to me, tackling me into the grass. I went face first and I cursed to myself, knowing it would make my black eye worse. I jerked my head back and I knew I did something because I heard a curse and the weight on my back was gone. I flipped over and got to my feet, hardly able to see out of my injured eye, but I had to make due with that.

"You're not coming willingly." His voice was flat, he was stating a fact.

"Of course I'm not." I spat at him. "I have a lot here. I'd have nothing if I went with you."

"Of course not." He growled and pulled his zanpakuto. "Come then."

I ripped Yoso free and charged him, slamming my blade into his. His eyes widened a bit in shock when I managed to shove him backwards a few feet. He scowled angrily at me and charged, and I blocked his attack, though I couldn't really hold my ground. He was using a lot of strength. I growled under my breath and electricity started popping and crackling around my blade. His eyes widened in surprise. I grinned and forced the electricity into his blade, which acted as a lightning rod and it pumped it into him, shocking him rather violently. He shouted in pain and jumped backwards. I didn't even know I could do that without releasing Yoso. That was good to know, although definitely not the best circumstance to figure that out. I let it swirl chaotically around my blade, it was harder to control with Yoso sealed, but I wasn't going to release just yet. I had to make sure I either had the upper hand, or I was losing so badly that I needed to release. I preferred the earlier, rather than the latter. I charged him with the electricity tucked in and when our blades met, it exploded and it threw us both backwards in opposite directions. I hadn't been expecting that. The hollow in me called me a fool and shrunk back when Yoso came to the forefront of my mind.

You have to be more careful. It's a lot more volatile unreleased like that. Yoso warned me.

I scowled and toned it down on the reiatsu, so it wouldn't explode everywhere again. But again when our blades made contact it went everywhere and the explosion was still violent enough to actually send me into the air.

You need to be trained to be doing this. You'll have to release for this to be a fair fight at all. You can learn how to control it unreleased later…

I mentally sighed and stayed up in the air, Justin just glaring hatefully up at me from the ground. I just watched him, waiting for him to do something. Then suddenly I went sailing into a tree and plowed straight through it into the ground. I hissed in pain and got back up to my feet and launched myself back up into the air at him, before getting thrown into the ground again. I just got back up anyways and threw myself back into the air, this time keeping my distance, watching him warily. His expression was unreadable and he just stood there, his hand holding the sword hanging at his side. I lunged at him but he grabbed me by the neck.

"You're an idiot, you can't beat me." He punched me in the nose.

I kicked out at his chest and managed to plant a decent kick. He finally let go of me and I snarled in rage and Yoso released without me realizing it. I started to whip lightning around angrily and shot it at him. He had to use sonido to get out of the way as it went crashing into a tree, setting fire to the tree. Great. I sighed and yanked it back and threw it in his direction again. He dodged it again and this time I whipped it back fast enough to prevent it from doing damage, it came back into my blade, right as I got a hard kick to the side of my head which sent me flying straight into the ground.

I groaned in pain, not registering that my head was bleeding and shot back up into the air, only to get knocked back down again, picked up by my hair and thrown into a tree, which shuddered, and then snapped in half I hit it so hard. I felt intense pain in my back and it felt like some ribs had cracked. I laid on the ground and struggled to breathe, but I forced myself to my feet. It hurt. My whole body had ached, my nose was bleeding, I had blood running into my good eye so I couldn't really see, yet I stepped forward anyway, only to have a figure block me. I froze and didn't look up, I was too scared to. Instead I tried to step around them, only to have their hands lock on my arms, preventing me from moving.

"Saru, enough." Ichigo's voice was hard. I still refused to look at his face. "You're done."

I struggled to break free. "This is my fight. Let go of me."

"No. You're done." He growled and I flinched. "He's gone anyway."

"If you hadn't stepped in I could have had a chance!" Yoso had quietly re sealed herself.

Ichigo's hands slid to my hand gripping my sword and carefully pulled my hand off and stuck her back in the sheath. "You could have died. So you're done."

"Why do you keep saying that?!" I snapped at him and finally looked at his face. It was unreadable.

"You're not going to face him. We'll deal with him." His voice was dangerous sounding and it freaked me out how upset he sounded. "And no I'm not going to let Orihime heal you. You'll go back in your body and the injuries will show up and we'll treat you at the Clinic."

"You're going to let me stay hurt." I stared at him in disbelief.

"If it's going to keep you safe, yes."

My teeth clamped together and I looked away from him without responding.

"I would have gotten here sooner but I had to take your body to the Clinic." His voice got hard. "Let's just go." His voice was harsh as he began to stalk off towards the Clinic. I trailed behind him, my good eye trained on the stiff set of his shoulders. I wasn't guilty, I wanted to take care of this problem. And he didn't want me to, he wanted to take care of it himself. I wasn't surprised. But I was angry that he wasn't going to let Orihime heal my wounds. I would definitely talk him out of that. I was mulling over what I was going to say when I noticed that Orihime was already at the Clinic, along with Chad and Rukia and Renji. I went to staring at the ground, there was no need for an argument now, though we were sure to have one later anyways. I heard someone gasp, I was sure it was Orihime. I looked up as she came running over to me. And without another word she began to heal me. Ichigo made a hiss in anger, but he wasn't going to stop her now. But this didn't mean anything at this point.

"I'll get you guys caught up later. I need to talk to Saru, alone." His voice was flat, dead sounding. I gave Orihime a hug of appreciation for healing me and then we went inside. I flinched and followed him in. He stormed up the stairs and I realized that's probably where both our bodies were. I just watched warily as he stomped into his room and slammed the door. I hurried into my room and fell into my body. I wasn't sure how to approach him with this, I have never seen him this angry at all. So when my door opened and I saw him walk in and silently close it behind him, I flinched. I sat criss cross on one end of my bed and stared out the window.

"Hey." His voice was quieter, less angry. "I had to give myself a minute to let myself cool off…"

I looked at him. He had a carefully controlled neutral expression. I didn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. I wasn't sorry for what I did, I just wanted to get rid of the problem. I just kept my face blank as well.

"You had every right to be angry…I did just go wandering off….exactly what everyone feared…" That realization just occurred to me. So I did have something to apologize for.

"You did scare the crap out of me when I finally got into the bathroom and your body is just lying there, with just a hint of your reiatsu still attached. I didn't know what to think of that, and I nearly panicked, then I felt your reiatsu burst from somewhere far away and I knew you had snuck off to do something. But I wouldn't have guessed that—" He had to stop and take a deep breath, his temper was getting the best of him. "—you would have gone running off to fight that—" String of curse words. "—thing to fight him. I was terrified to see you so weak, your reiatsu shrank so much I thought you were basically dead. I don't know what you were thinking." His voice was tainted with anger again and I could see it clearly in his eyes.

"I thought maybe if…" I started slowly. "I got rid of him we could have a semi normal life. At least for a while. I'm just tired of this crap happening to us all the time. I thought maybe if I handled it everything would be okay…"

"You almost died." His voice was quiet again. "If you would have died, that would have been it for me. I would have lost it. I can't lose you like that."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know…I didn't think it through…"

"That's the thing right there. You didn't think. You didn't think what it would do to those who cared about you if you died."

I stared down at my hands, feeling ashamed now. I hadn't thought about that. "I'm sorry. If I would have thought about that I wouldn't have gone…"

"You should have just told me and we could have dealt with it together. Remember, we do things together."

"I know." I had used those words and then ignored them. What a hypocrite I was. "I'm sorry." That was all I could think of to say. No better defense for what I did. I was all out of words.

"Just promise me that from now on you'll tell me and not go running off." He put his hand under my chin and made me look at him.

"I promise." I said.

"Thank you." He leaned forward and kissed me softly. Then he leaned back and sighed. "Well we never got that pizza."

I snorted. "We can always go back and have some."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure we could."

I totally should have seen this coming. It was two weeks since that happened, and our lives seemed to go on without incident. We were back at school, and I was never left alone, not even for a second. Someone always had an eye on me. The only times I was alone was when I went to bed. My emotional outbursts seemed to have disappeared, although we weren't sure if that was good or bad yet. However, the nightmares continued. And they've only gotten worse. I can't ever remember them now, I just woke up in a cold sweat and terrified, not remembering why.

And then this one happened.

I was wandering through the woods, not sure where I was or where I was going. Only knowing I was searching for someone, someone I'd lost a while back and needed to be found. I couldn't seem to find my way out of these stupid trees. I continued to walk straight in the hopes that I could find my way out. It wasn't working very well. Then I heard a voice behind me and I turned around. It was that Justin guy, and he wasn't alone. Ulquiorra stood by his side. I froze in fear.

"So, are you going to make this easier and come with us willingly or not?" Justin's voice didn't sound quite right, it was slightly distorted.

"No." I growled. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

Justin didn't seem to respond, just stared blankly at me. Ulquiorra seemed to begin to change, to morph into something or someone else. What the…?

And then it was Ichigo. He was tied up and his mouth was covered. I stared in horror. Justin turned to him. "This is the price you pay for not coming willingly with us."

He shoved his hand into his chest and ripped out his heart. Ichigo's eyes went dark and the hole stayed open in his chest and he began to hollowfy…

That's when I started screaming.

I was woken up by someone shaking me, and realized I was actually screaming out loud. The dream was fading from my memory now as I stopped thrashing and sat straight up, my heart pounding furiously and I was shaking. Ichigo was looking at me with concern. I couldn't speak for a minute.

"Nightmare?" He asked.

"Yeah. Worst one I've had." I finally said, my voice shaking. "I don't really remember it now though." Except for the part where you die. I kept that part to myself.

"Do you think you'll be able to fall back asleep?" Ichigo looked torn about leaving, but he looked like he was going to collapse back into sleep before too long.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be fine, go back to bed."

He turned and walked away, hesitated at the door, and I nearly asked him to stay but the words failed me and he shut the door behind him with a click. I just stared at the door for a few minutes, then rested my head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. I knew there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to go back to sleep. Just no way. The lack of sleep was hurting me bad, I was actually falling asleep in class. My grades were spiraling because I would just fall asleep whenever I tried to do homework and I was more and more scatterbrained with each night I didn't get much sleep. And this night wouldn't be different. If I kept this up, I wouldn't be passing my junior year of high school. I needed help. But high school had been the last thing on my mind.

I rolled over and laid face down on the pillow and tried not to think.