I'M BACK BACK BACK AGAIN! I'm sorry for the HUUUGE delay and I want to thank you for the nice reviews, especially the one left by the guest on my lastest chapter, it fueled me to suck this chapter out of my fingers. Also this chapter is a hot mess you are warned!

Next chapter probably on June 14 or earlier if I'm in the mood to read through the smut that it is. Oh, did I say smut?

Chapter VI: I Am Lost So I Am Cruel

Days and nights bled into weeks and soon most of April had passed by. The weather, instead of changing for better, became uncertain – days of warm sunshine were followed by howling winds and rain. The cold seeped through every small crack around the door and windows but was yet to conquer the rooms. Still, on some nights Kenpachi would light up the fire in the living room so he and Retsu would not be cold when they go to bed. On the next morning, the sakura flowers would always awake covered in a thin sheet of frost.

The captain had found himself in a state more odd than the weather. While he barely noticed the medics coming to and leaving his house every day, the woman's presence was both natural and strangely disturbing to him. Almost wrong. He had never been in her company before and now he could see why the Court of the Clean Souls adored her so. There was something about her, something he could not pinpoint that made one feel at ease.

This was the oddest of all – while everyone claimed she had not changed at all, Kenpachi could not possibly be the judge of that. As if Retsu was the Moon and he came from another planet. He had only experienced the dark and cold side of her, never the light, never this.

She was kind, kinder to him than anyone had ever been. Kinder than he had been to her. Kinder than he was now. He had never been her friend and he was not one now. The man knew he was pathetic but he could not behave in any other way. After all that had happened between them, he could not be that false.

Retsu did not falter. The captain could hear her exit her room in the morning while he was still reluctant to get up but could not go back to sleep. He would swear that today would be just another day filled with stolen stares and clenched teeth. He would not stay in the same room as her for long. He would not ask her anything. He wouldn't care. He wouldn't show her that he cared. He would not be false and pretend they had been good to each other. The captain had told Isane that he hated her.

He hated her.

Kenpachi would soon join her in the kitchen where she would bid him good morning and serve him a cup of warm tea with an even warmer smile on her face. Unlike her, he would always falter. Her voice brought him no pain now but he felt some nonetheless. Retsu was so good to him, her presence more soothing than any kind of medicine he has ever had, her demeanour brighter than the crisp spring sun outside. The man was at odds with himself – he had never imposed control over himself; whatever he wanted, he took.

Today was no different – he received the cup from Retsu's hand and had to remind himself that he hated her. He heard the medics knock and enter the living room where they would spend the day barely noticeable almost part of the furnishing. The tea was bitter as always, with a flowery hint that even someone like Kenpachi could notice. Making tea and drinking it was never a priority to him – he would brew some herbs only when Yachiru had been sick and that was rarely. Even sweetened tea was too bitter for her and a man like him could live just fine on water and sake.

Something was different today but Kenpachi could not quite put his finger on it. The flowery taste in his mouth lingered while the bitterness faded. It always did, that was not it. The weather had remained sunny, as it had been for the last few day, but only relatively warm. Something felt different. The man turned his head to look at Retsu.

He heard a knock on the door for the second time this morning.

Kenpachi silently cursed whoever sought him this early in the morning, left his cup on the kitchen table and walked to the front door. It had to be Yumichika, pestering him again with paperwork. At least now that he was on official paid leave, Ikkaku was fully able to sign the monthly reports and manage the division on his own. It had better be something important.

When he opened the door it he was not greeted by a stack of papers and flamboyant eyelashes but by a bouquet of peonies and lilies so large it almost hid the teenage boy that brought it.

The bouquet, no, the boy bowed before speaking.

"Flowers for Unohana-sama," a still high-pitched voice proclaimed. Kenpachi almost shut the door in his face in his confusion but heard her steps behind him.

"Oh, I thought it was Yumichika," she spoke. The man turned around to look at the woman as she walked to him and took the flowers from the boy's hands.

"Thank you very much," she chimed but the captain did not hear her. The warm breeze coming from though the open door picked on the locks of hair that framed her face and played with them. Kenpachi was foolish enough to think he could not be caught off guard. The flowers paled in beauty compared to her. She was so fair, her skin as delicate as their petals, her cheeks a softer pink than the peonies in her arms.

The desire to touch her came over him so suddenly, as if he was a child eager to touch everything it found beautiful. To feel her under his fingertips however so slightly. However so shortly. A mere brush against her skin that he knew would not be enough. It never was. Every evening the ointment seeped too fast into her skin.

The captain realised he was not alone and turned to look at the boy that brought the flowers. With the enormous bouquet out of his hands, he looked more like a child. A tall and lean one but a child nonetheless. Someone had made an effort to make his hair look presentable but even this early in the morning it was already messed up. He can't be older than I was when I met her. And he hadn't been the only one staring at Retsu right now.

"Oi, kid, shut your mouth, some fly may get in." The man proceeded to lightly slap the boy on his neck. He jolted upright as if pinched and his cheeks burned red.

"Kenpachi, don't scold him," Retsu said as she reached out to smoothen out his messy hair.

"Sorry, Captain, ma'am! I better be on my way," the boy almost shouted, embarrassed by his own behaviour and her touch and all but ran away, earning a surprised face and a small chuckle from Retsu.

After closing the door, Kenpachi stalked after her, feeling as if he had been defeated in a fight. It was worse, actually. He had never cared about winning or losing – to fight was what he wanted; his loss to Ichigo was sweeter than a hundred victories. He hadn't fought now. Was there even a fight to win or lose?

The man watched Retsu unfold the card that had been tucked into the bouquet.

"Who is it from?" Fuck, this is none of my business. The man still wanted to hear the answer.

"Shunsui and the Gotei. He says he's going to visit later 'uninvited but at least announced'," she responded nonchalantly but happily. Receiving flowers made her happy. Of course it did. She liked flowers, he had always known that. The black-haired woman must have heard him grind his teeth for she turned to look at him wide-eyed.

"Oh, Kenpachi, I'm sorry, I meant to tell you earlier."

Kenpachi wished he had never asked. She is leaving. It should not matter; he hated her. He should want her to leave. The sooner she leaves, the sooner I go back to fighting with the division. He should have rejoiced when Isane had been about to take her ago a little more than a month ago. A month… How fast it had passed…

"You're leaving." Me. Again. The captain almost did not recognize his voice coming out of his mouth. She had left him twice now. This was what defeat sounded like.

"Today is my birthday," she spoke at the same time as him, their words overlapping like crossfire.

Kenpachi almost froze, overwhelmed by surprise, before cursing himself for the hundredth time this morning. He should not have spoken that soon. It would have been better if he had stayed silent. This was what had been different this morning and it was no more. He watched the smile on Retsu's face wane and be replaced by hurt.

"If you want me to leave, I will leave. I told you so weeks ago."

This again. Retsu sounded sad but calm and resolute. His words would drive her away if his temper did not. It seemed like she still had her doubts and maybe he had his.

"You can stay. If you want to." The pain in her eyes persisted and Retsu just nodded before turning away from him, changing the subject.

"Do you have a flower vase in which I could put them?"

"No." She was easily the only finery in the house. Kenpachi was looking at her back, her long black hair falling straight down her neck and back like dark waterfall, interrupted only by the curve of her kimono collar. He was glad Retsu never put her hair in that damned braid again but he suspected it might be only because women's kimonos were high-collared enough to hide her scar. In return the back of the garments stood lower, baring the nape of her neck and upper back just enough so the scar on her back was slightly visible. If she were to wear a shihakusho again, the braid would probably return.

"A jar will do then," Retsu said making a step towards the cupboards.

Once again, the man caught himself staring at her but this instance he did not look away. Instead, he outstretched his arm and caught her by the elbow before she moved out of reach.

"Oi, Retsu—"

She stopped in her tracks and turned around to face Kenpachi. His hold on her weakened. He felt a tremor in his chin but spoke firmly.

"Happy birthday."

Retsu smiled so beautifully. She moved the weight of the flowers onto her other elbow and slid her arm through the captain's loosened hold until their palms touched.

"Thank you." The woman held his hand for no more than a couple of seconds but the fight in Kenpachi's head lasted eons – his first thought was to retract his palm immediately as if burnt. No one had held his hand that gently. Kenpachi rarely sought comfort in touch and rarely found it there. And now her hold felt blistering as if he had put his palm on the iron-cast kettle that was still on the stove.

His second thought was to ignore this feeling and to clasp their hands tight despite it. To never let go, to dig his fingers into her flesh again, so unlike this tender hold she had on him. Death brought her back, Kenpachi thought. No grave can hold her away from me. Whatever happened, no matter how hard she tried to run away from him, he always found her. But now, Retsu wasn't running. Instead, she was holding him firmer than he did her and if her touch burned, he did not mind turning to ashes.

Retsu pulled her hand away and turned around again, resuming her search for a vessel to put the bouquet in. She settled for a tall rounded jar with a small throat and arranged the flowers. Kenpachi took his lukewarm cup of tea from the table as he watched the skilfulness inherent only to an ikebana master with which she moved the flowers so they faced a certain way.

The captain smiled involuntarily. It was her birthday. The true day she was born on, unlike his or Yachiru's. One could know his name only if someone called them by it; one could know their day of birth only if someone celebrated it with them. He had no one tell him any of those things and neither did Yachiru. The pink haired girl had taken as her birthday the day he had found her and he had taken the day he had woken up after his first fight with Retsu. The days before it had merged into a formless eternity; the days after it had separated like stab wounds. The scars on his body multiplied, healed and faded but this yearning he had for her, for another fight with her, only festered.

Shit. Kenpachi had to get her something. It was easy with Yachiru. He knew what she owned, what she could need and what she wanted. Usually the latter was sweets and while he couldn't not indulge her, he wanted to put a little more effort in it. Money were not a problem, he never really learned to spend them. Whatever he spend was for Yachiru and the household, the rest of his salary usually was left unused. Still, he tried his best not to spoil her. Kenpachi was responsible for her. She was the closest thing to a family he had.

"I'm going out. Do you need anything," he asked Retsu as he was tying his .

"Not really, I don't plan on celebrating." The woman came to the door to see him off. "I hope you will be back by the time Shunsui stops by."

"Yeah, I will be." Kenpachi would hate to miss it, especially today. He had found it harder to keep his calm when Kyouraku went into his usual manner of carefree sweet-talking that everyone knew him for.

With the closing of the front door his brain returned to the thought that infested his mind. A present. Retsu had barely anything to call her own except the bare necessities and still. Kenpachi felt as if he knew nothing about her still. What did she want? What would she like? More than month had passed since he had found her and yet he did not know when her birthday was.

It had to be something beautiful. She liked beautiful things, that much he knew. But how was he supposed to know what was beautiful to her? The man could hardly tell what he himself found to be beautiful. Retsu. The colour of Yachiru's hair that made the other children tease her so often while they were travelling. The shine of steel and its sound as it met its equal. He wished he could see with her eyes for a minute to see what she found beautiful.

Kenpachi was standing in front of his own home, hesitating to enter, clutching a parcel in his hands and a demijohn full of sake dangling from a rope on his wrist. The plain off-white paper box was not particularly festive. He should have had it wrapped prettier, the man thought. It was too late for anything, choosing a present had proved harder than he expected and even now he was not completely certain in his choice.

He could not be certain if he did not enter and give his present to Retsu, right? Furthermore, it did not make sense for him to be this nervous about this. It had never mattered, it did not matter now and it would never matter. They had never been close and they would never be. One present would change noting.

The captain entered the house, greeted first by music and then by Retsu. She was sitting on a pillow by the table in the living room, reading a book with gilded edges that Kenpachi did not remember owning. The only books in the house were Yachiru's colouring books and some old scroll Yamamoto had given him to inspire his interest in kendo but he never got around to look through it.

On the table, there was a stack of a couple more books, still very loosely bound with a silvery ribbon, a white envelope and the… thing that the music came from. It was not like anything he had seen before – it looked like a record player, something he had seen only in images but never in person, but still not quite. Its base looked more like a box than a platform, the horn was smaller than the one usually pictured and there was no 'record'. Instead, there was a strange roll, which seemed responsible for the sound.

Retsu put down her book and stood up.

"You missed Shunsui and Isane. They left half an hour ago." He had really taken his time, it seemed. Kenpachi felt a hint of relief that Kyouraku did not visit alone

"What is this," he asked, genuinely curious, pointing at the device that played the music.

"Haven't you seen one before? It is a phonograph. Shunsui was ecstatic when it first came out but that's all I could remember. He had to show me how to work with it." Still it was a lot more than she remembered about him, Kenpachi thought bitterly. "He thought it would be nice to give it to me for a while, to keep me company if the need arises. And Isane brought me some books."

As if I am a bad company, or not enough of a one. The captain thought it was better to be bitter than nervous. At least it felt familiar.

"I got you something too." He handed her the white box and watched for her reaction with more hope than he would like to admit. He wished she would like his present. If she accepted it, it would be the first thing she accepted from him. Maybe she could accept even him, in the end.

"Thank you, Kenpachi."

Retsu untied the plain ribbon and removed the lid, then unfolded the paper. It revealed pale pink silk, the colour of peonies and sky barely after dawn. She looked at him with glimmering eyes before looking back at the fabric. The man reached out to support to box so she could pull the garment out effortlessly.

The plain fabric unfolded into an elegant dress with an accentuated waist and a full skirt. Kenpachi discarded the box mindlessly, preoccupied with the sparkle in her eyes.

"I don't know if it will fit you."

Retsu smiled in response.

"Oh, Kenpachi, it's exquisite! It's wonderful but you shouldn't have went so far! I have nowhere to wear it."

„Wear it now."

She weighted his words and nodded.

"I shall."

Retsu went to change and the captain thought that in the meantime a cup of sake would only do him good. He went to the kitchen and put the demijohn on the floor. He took out two tokkuri flasks and two ochoko cups out of the cupboard before removing the wax from the demijohn. After filling the tokkuri carefully, he lifted the demijohn to his mouth and drank straight out of it. The liquor pleasantly burned his mouth and throat, sending a stream of fire down to his belly. Yes, this was the good stuff.

Kenpachi took the utensils in his hands and made his trip back to the living room. He sat down on the floor, put the flasks and the cups on the table and poured the sake. The cylinder ran out and the phonograph soon stopped spinning. He took a better look at this strange machine and the cylinders that came with it. None of the names were familiar to him – he knew no more than a couple of folk songs.

The captain downed his cup and put it back on the table forgetting to fill it. Where he came from people had one too many worries to sing. Taken deep in thoughts, he did not hear her returning steps nor the whisper of silk on the floorboards.

"It fits well. It's a bit too long but a high heel would fix it."

The man scattered to his feet. Retsu was standing in the doorway, one of her hands smoothing over the skirt while the other was clasped over her scar. The light pink silk brought out her dark hair and the redness of her lips. The paleness of her skin… It was the first time he saw her in anything other than a kimono or her shihakusho. The dress left her arms and shoulders bare save for the strap-like sleeves and rested on top of her breasts in the shape of a heart. It fit snugly around her waist but draped over her hips, gradually becoming fuller until it hit the floor, ending with a small train in the back.

Retsu picked up the fabric from the side and spun around, smiling, before she came closer to the captain but without removing her hand from her scar.

"Kenpachi?"

He heard her calling him, he definitely did, but he seemed to have lost the power of speech. She is the most beautiful woman in the Seireitei, he thought but he did not say it aloud. She had always been, but she has always been something he could see and never touch.

Her hand went to his chin and gently pressed up until he heard his teeth clack.

"Some fly may get in." There was a certain tease in her smile that he had never encountered before but one that he liked immediately. Somehow it brought him to ease. There was no reason to be this nervous after all.

"It has been quite some time since I last wore something like this… And never so revealing on my…," her hand motioned her chest while still covering her scar.

"Is it too much?" He liked the way she looked but if she did not it defeated the purpose of his present.

"No, I'm confident in my body. It's my scar that is the trouble. I don't remember many things yet but I know that I do not wear clothes that show it." Kenpachi could see the hesitation in her eyes. "Perhaps I should…"

Her free hand reached out to the back of her head and parted her hair in the middle, then brought each of the halves forward. Only then Retsu let go of her scar but only because she needed both her hands in order to braid her hair. The captain watched her make one twist, then another, her motions swift and precise, trained for centuries.

The woman stopped less than halfway through.

"It looks stupid, don't you think so?"

Kenpachi hated that braid with every fibre of his being but he could not tell her that. Instead, he reached out and slowly started undoing her work.

"Why do you do it then," he asked.

"The scar has to be hidden. It is proof that I am who I try not to be. It is proof for my..." Retsu stopped speaking for moment and a part of the captain wished she would not continue. Did he really had the right to ask her questions that seemed to torture her soul?

"My heaviest sin."

His fingers stopped.

"Your heaviest sin? The people you've killed?" He had done the same he had told her. He was a sinner as much as she was.

Retsu shook her head.

"No." She smiled but her smile was filled with disgust and mockery. "It sounds heartless, doesn't it? Not the murders, nor the bloodlust in my heart. I do not regret those. It is something else. I do not remember. I just know it."

Kenpachi's hand slid out of her hair, his mind swung back to anger. His scar reminded him only of her but it seems it was not the same for Retsu. She did not remember a single thing about him while he could swear that all he remembered was her.

"There's hardly any meaning in hiding it from you." Retsu spoke again. "You are the first person whose name I remembered. You know of my past. You have seen my scar."

Retsu flipped each of the halves of her hair to her back, baring her décolletage. Her fingers briefly brushed against her scar as one would touch a new jewel. For a moment, he wished she would hide it again so he could keep his anger and resentment. The scar stood out against her ivory skin and pale pink dress and while his scar made him look like a demon, hers made her look like a martyr.

"Do you want a drink," the captain asked while he was sitting down. He desperately needed to have another cup just to keep the thoughts that plagued him at bay.

"Yes, I can enjoy a couple of drinks." Retsu sat down next to him as he reached out to take the flask and refill his cup. "No, Kenpachi, stop."

Oh, shit. It was frowned upon to pour your own sake when in company but he often ignored this rule. He had always chased away the women in the inns he had stayed in who insisted on pouring his alcohol.

"Let me." Retsu took the flask from his hand and tipped it so the clear liquid could flow into the cup he held but he was more interested in her face than her hands. He still could not get used to this feeling of being close to her. Always see but never touch.

Retsu poured him a cup and they drank. The captain feared that the strong sake would not be to her taste but she quite liked it. The woman winded up the phonograph and let it play one of the cylinders. It turned out she could handle her liquor well and they went past the promised couple of drinks. Kenpachi finally found himself relaxed, even maybe too much so. He knew he was staring too much at her but he could not avert his eyes. Her face and neck were flushed from the alcohol and her eyes seemed dreamier than usual. Dreamier? Fuck, I am drunk. He had more liquor than this without getting under the influence of it this much. Kenpachi thought he probably looked like a fool – drunk, mesmerized and the closest to happiness he had been in this past year.

"Do you want to dance," the woman asked him as she was removing a cylinder from the phonograph's axis.

"I don't know how to dance." He had never dance in his life. Dancing required music, a partner and a reason to dance. He rarely had any of these.

"Do you want to learn?"

Kenpachi figured he was probably too drunk to walk properly let alone spin in circles with her but, fuck it, he was willing to try and not step on her feet for a couple of minutes. He ungainly stood up and stalked to Retsu, the spinning centre of the world. The realisation that he was drunker than he thought he was came upon him.

The captain stood in front of her utterly ignorant of what he was supposed to do. She took hold of his left hand and raised it in the air.

"Take my hand like this." She then took his right hand and put it on the curve of her back. "Your other hand goes here. There we go," the woman talked him through their starting position, then looked up at him and smiled. Her eyes seemed glassy and knew that he was not the only one well in his cups.

In a certain way, this felt right. Their hands clasped, her other hand resting on his shoulder and his on her waist. Kenpachi strengthened his hold and pulled her closer.

"We need not be this close," Retsu spoke. "It's going to be easier if we are a little further apart."

"I'm too drunk for easy." He was too drunk for anything but right now to dance with her was all he wanted. Dance would probably too strong a word, but whatever was coming out of this, he wanted it.

She laughed at his remark.

"I'm not sober either. I might step on your toes," Retsu said while smiling brightly.

"Pretty sure I won't feel it. I'm that drunk." Laughter left Retsu's lips once again and the man marvelled how the music paled in comparison to it. Her hand stroked his shoulder in an attempt to relieve the tension in his muscles.

"Don't be so tense, I'm not running away. Keep your upper body straight and relaxed. Think of this as fighting – in order to move freely and fast you have to be relaxed and use force only when the blades are about to touch."

Kenpachi exhaled and made an effort to chase the tension away.

"Listen to the music and start with your right foot going forward. Now your left foot should follow…" Fuck, this was too hard and he was too drunk to process what she was saying. Forward, follow, gather, back, follow, gather. If he could feel his legs, it would be far easier.

"Shit." He was not one to learn styles of dancing or fighting for that matter. Kendo had enough steps and rules for a lifetime. If it did not feel so nice, he would have quit by now and crashed into bed. The man looked down to his feet just to be sure that they followed his orders.

"Don't look." The captain looked up to her mouth as she said this and he thought that looking up to her face was a mistake. Retsu was too lovely. "You're doing fine. Listen to the music, you're a little off tempo."

Kenpachi heard the music but it seemed as if it was playing from another room. He knew that 'a little off tempo' was an understatement. His senses were overwhelmed and for a moment he missed his eyepatch. It would ground him a little more if he saw her with one eye only. She was so beautiful, her cheeks flushed with colour from the alcohol. More beautiful than any man deserved. I'm wasted. Kenpachi knew he did not hate her now. He would have never hated her if Retsu had done so little as to give him a chance…

His hate was rooted in the way she used to treat him. When Kenpachi had stridden in the meeting hall in the barracks of the First squad on the first day of his captaincy, she had been the first thing he had seen. He remembered feeling happy. He had found her behind the whitewashed walls of the Court of the Clean Souls after so many decades of wandering. His feet had a mind of his own for if it depended on him he would have reached Retsu before the arms of Kyouraku and Ukitake had entwined around each one of his shoulders. They were not the thing that restrained him. The glimpse of horror he saw in her eyes stopped him. Was his image that terrifying? It was she who had marked him for life! Then her coldness had turned the remainders of his happiness to ashes. A taste so bitter he had felt his tongue go numb.

The captain knew he should not look down but he could not turn away. Her scar lurked in the shadow cast by her beautiful face but he saw it still – twisted and discoloured mauled flesh. Tonight was the first time he was seeing it since the day he had found her but he could see it with his eyes closed. Kenpachi forgot to move as his hand left her waist and brushed along her collarbone. He wanted to touch it – out of curiosity, out of bitterness, out of hatred.

His fingers froze. He could not. Retsu wasn't stopping him, she didn't slap his hand this time but he couldn't. If he had wanted to do it then with no actual thought of her, now… Even if the desire to break her down – so he could get to the Retsu he knew, get to Yachiru, and probably get his revenge in the process – persisted, so did the desire to never part with her. Everything he thought he wanted during all those years, everything he ought to want, he did not.

"Kenpachi?" Retsu must have seen the conflict in his eyes.

"Mm?"

"I need to know, were we…close in any way before all of this happened?"

"No, we were never."

"Then why are you giving me the choice to stay with you?"

His hand left her waist and moved up to her face to cup her cheek. Retsu did not lean into his touch but neither moved back. She did not tear her eyes from him, waiting for an answer. Should he tell her his drowned in sake secret or further drown it, bury it forever. Kenpachi's gaze moved restless across her features. His calloused, scorched by the sun hand couldn't look more different than her porcelain face. Now or never.

"Because I want you to stay."