Hey all, I have really enjoyed all of the comments on the last chapter and will be crossing my fingers for more feedback after this one. I think the story is on its way to winding down shortly and hope to bring it to an end soon. Enjoy!

~Pixiewolf

CHAPTER 10

RUKIA

It had all happened so fast. She had known the moment he stepped into her bedroom that Ichigo was angry with her. Frankly she had been more and a little surprised to see him at all let alone this close to her. Suddenly she had felt her own anger flare to life both at his unwelcomed intrusion into her room and for his secret spying. She had never been one to become overly emotional but somehow he brought out the worst in her.

"And the best," she thought the words before she could stop them, mentally berating herself for the betrayal.

They seemed to be fighting a lot more lately. She might have even said Ichigo was somehow different, that this sort of thing was impossible for someone like him. And that he had changed in some intrinsic way she could not hope to understand. But who was she to judge what was or wasn't normal. Emotions were certainly a subject she had little experience with. Besides wasn't her being here, with him in this way going against her very nature. She turned the contradiction around in her mind as her heart thundered in her chest and his eyes bore straight to her soul.

Like she had a thousand times before, Rukia blocked the rest of the thoughts from her mind.

It was too hard, too painful and too confusing for her to face her own emotions.

So she remained silent. Silent to her grief. Silent to his pain.

And then something happened that she had never expected from him.

She closed her eyes, seeking to center herself. It is perplexing that she finds herself coming to trust him so, when it was not so long ago that he seemed to typify everything impetuous about humans. But now, he is complex, much more so than she first thought. And maybe, once upon a time this moment might have been different, but that had been a lifetime ago. A small part of her even begins to wish that they would be together, somehow more than just in this stolen moment of empty pleasure and unspoken words.

The thought is almost strong enough to bring her pause.

Almost.

She's spared more than moment of doubt as his sword callused hands grasp her shoulders pulling her to him, turning his head at such an angle to better claim her mouth with his own kiss. Rukia moans as he begins planting soft, tender kisses against the line of her jaw, tracing a torturous path down her neck, his hands pushing up against her breasts in an effort to possess her. She can feel his reitsu searing itself upon her psyche rendering her senses more and more unhinged. The voices of reason and good judgment have long since been silenced as all traces of doubt are erased from her mind by his kiss. Never in her wildest dreams could she imagine Ichigo and her together in this way. And as he sucked at Rukia's bottom lip, her body became restless. Her own hands run over his back, his hands playing at her breasts as she arches herself further into his heated grasp. The reality of him was so much more than she could have imagined.

His presence reassures her that she has chosen the correct path in this. She trembled with the emotions that coursed through her at that moment, uncontrolled and unnamable, and behind and underneath and through it all was the white-hot aching need to touch, to taste, to explore and discover each other.

She reveled in pleasure as Ichigo's strong hands roamed over her body and as his lips slid down her neck, nibbling at the tender juncture of her shoulder and neck. She closed her eyes and sighed as his hand cupped the weight of her breast and he suckled at her nipple. Instinctually she ground her hips against him with a moan as his tongue lapped and pulled at her, the sharp shocks of pleasure coursing directly to the sensitive place between her legs, sending waves of blissful sensation through her body.

"Ichigo ..." his name but a whisper on her lips as her body trembled at his ministrations, his hardness pressing against her body but not yet inside her. She moved her hips against him, seeking contact with him. Ichigo broke away from the kiss, bringing his mouth to the edge of her jaw, the lobe of her ear.

"Rukia."

His hot breath came in ragged gasps against the sensitive shell.

"I need you ..."

ICHIGO

Looking deeply into Rukia's eyes he felt an unexpected shock race through him and suddenly his world shifted sideways.

Ichigo dropped soundlessly into a place he recognized from both his dreams and his nightmares.

He shivered in the dark.

An unknown but not unpleasant scent brushed across his mind. He would have gasped at the wonder of it but felt as though he had no lungs. No air to breathe. He tried to speak the words that were on his mind but his voice failed him.

"What is this place and were is Rukia?"

After a few moments of waiting and noticing he was once again surprisingly clothed as a shinigami, he began walking forward, hands stretched out in front as if to ward off the inky blackness that surrounded him. In the far distance Ichigo's eyes fixated on a pin prick of light using it as a guide for his steps. As he walked forward the light grew until he was able to make out tall forms in the distance. As he neared he recognized them as trees, huge and silent. As Ichigo stepped from what he assumed to be the entrance to a cave and out amongst the tall trees he took a deep breath, forgetting for a moment where he was. There was no air in this place and once again the same unknown scent pulled at him, numbing his mind, loosening his grip on reality one proverbial finger at a time. His footsteps made no sound as he walked across the leaf strewn forest floor.

He turned trying to make sense of this place. It felt horribly familiar to him, like a half remembered dream precisely at the point of waking. There for a moment and gone the next.

It was nothing like the place where Zengetsu inhabited his mind. A thought occurred to him,

"Zengetsu. Maybe he knows something."

Ichigo focused his mind and called for his friend. As he searched for the presence of Zengetsu another shutter entered him, this time he sensed only the burden of enduring sorrow. He shutters as an unmistakeable feeling of dread filled him as he stood unmoving surrounded by the tall silent trees. The unknown scent continued to pull at him reminding him of something forgotten.

A voice he recognized slithered into his mind breaking his concentration. He had forgotten about the creature that lived in him. A thought struck him and he fought against an overwhelming urge to be sick.

He knew where he was.

He was in his own mind.

"Ich-ig-o"

The words felt as though they had slipped under his skin. Ichigo spun around trying to pin point the person speaking the words. Long shadows danced at the edges of his vision the silent forest remaining dark and unmoving, empty of all except him. He closed his eyes intending on scanning for a reitsu, when he heard the voice again, deepening the chill he had felt when he first found himself in this place. It was singing the same lines over and over. He pressed his hands to his ears in a feeble attempt to block out the words. The horrible voice filled his mind until he felt he would break.

"I won't cry for what I had, I won't cry for what I lost."

"I'm dying for what I'll have; I'm dying for what I'll gain…"

Except he knew this voice.

His voice.

With terrible comprehension he realized the horrible voice singing in his head was his own. And even more alarmingly it was the part of him that had become a hollow. He searched his mind frantically looking for the prison he had constructed to keep the hollow in his mind sealed away. The same prison that he had created in his mind to keep the dark part of himself locked away was in pieces and he hadn't even noticed.

The words flowed around him from all sides, filling his mind with terrible images.

So much pain, so much blood.

"You have become what you have always been, underneath."

"No I don't believe it! I'm not like you. I won't let you out. I won't become a monster like you."

"It's already too late for you. You see, I am already free."

A tendril of fear snaked through him as he realized the absolute truth in those words. Suddenly the trees felt claustrophobic and the shifting play of sunlight on the leaves above seemed menacing. Ichigo began running as fast as his legs would carry him in a desperate need to find the monster inside himself, kill it and somehow get back to Rukia.

The image of Rukia flooded his mind pushing back his sorrow. He felt his thoughts begin to calm when he thought of her strength and passion.

"You only wish to use her to satisfy your own selfish needs."

Guilt overwhelmed him. The memory of finding her wounded and broken pricked at his mind. When he lifted her into his arms, she weighed no more than a child. She usually holds herself so rigidly, so stoically that she seemed bigger, an easy match for him. But unconscious, she seemed so much smaller, so very vulnerable. Seeing her like that had struck a chord within him that resonated still. It was in that moment he decided she would need every possible advantage when the time came. He had pushed her away for that reason and in the cruelest way possible. But now after all that he had done to make her hate him he pulled her back in and then proceeded to degrade her further by toying with her emotions.

"I could have stopped myself. What's wrong with me? Why would I hurt her like that?"

He tried to put it together for himself, tried to make sense of his actions. He was alone and in such terrible pain. He had never known anything like it before. Hell, he felt worse than dead, would have rather been dead except for the fact that he needed to be alive to finish what he had started, to keep his promise.

The whisper of his rational mind tried one last, desperate gambit.

"She needs me. She wants to be with me."

"She never wanted to be with you. You're selfish, and filled with the very taint she seeks to destroy. You will break her. And she will hate you for it."

"She came to me. She wants to be with me."

"If she knew what you were she would never have wanted to be with you. You were only doing what you wanted."

But a whisper of uncertainty stopped him.

"What if she isn't willing? What if she says no? No, she won't say no."

What if she does? Would that stop you?

He didn't know. God help him, he didn't know. The realization had burned through the fog of his mind, and it horrified and frightened him in a way nothing ever had in his life. He had tried to protect her from him. He had tried to distance himself from her, make her hate him and now he was thinking about her in the most intimate of ways.

"Wait, what am I doing?"

Why was he thinking about her now in this place? Why was he discussing the person he cared most about in the universe with the part of him that wished for unimaginable suffering?

Unexpectedly, the unknown smell surrounded him forcing him to put aside his thoughts. He put a hand to his nose and mouth trying to block out the overpowering smell. He hadn't realized where he had been running. He looked around himself for the first time in a long while and noticed tiny droplets of red on the bark of a nearby tree. When he walked up to the tree he noticed more blood on the tree behind it. He followed the path of blood covered trees until he reached a clearing.

That's when he saw it.

The ground was thick with bodies and patches of red. That's when he realized what the smell was.

Blood.

He had seen this place in his nightmares. He had killed all of these people and had revelled in the supreme slaughter.

It was already too late.

He turned to face Dark Ichigo ready to fight. And for the first time he noticed that the sound had returned to this place. He reached for his sword but found that unlike his nightmare he was carrying nothing. He brought his sword arm back down and focused on the man now standing before him. The smirk on his face told Ichigo everything and nothing.

Dark Ichigo grinned widely when Ichigo attacked with his fists.

Ichigo knew it would have no effect but he had to try anyway. He couldn't let this monster have control.

A sudden shockwave ripped through the nightmare sending Ichigo to the ground.

"You tried to hide her from me. That wasn't very nice. But don't worry there are no hard feelings."

Ichigo springs to his feet, he lunging at Dark Ichigo only to find himself on the ground once again.

"You can't have her. I will stop you."

Dark Ichigo's grin widened as he let out a bone chilling laugh.

"I'm nothing like the things you have ever faced before. I am the thing that walks between the shadow and the light. And with luck, they will never find you,-and you will know pain and fear."

Dark Ichigo's voice drops to a low whisper as he leans forward, his face centimetres from a prone Ichigo.

"-and then you will die."

"Why are you doing this? Do you want me to be like you? Is that it? Is that it?"

Ichigo's question is met with only harsh laughter.

"Is that what you think? Human lives are so fragile, slipping away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment. To change what is to come, and I intend to do just that. Blood calls out for blood."

Ichigo's long fingers were moving over the creamy naked skin of her torso. Dark eyes watched her intently as she worked to pull down his boxers. She had barely pulled them down over his hips when he pressed her flush against him. One arm supported him over her as he pressed his mouth to hers, letting his warm tongue slide against hers.

And just as suddenly as she found herself pressed so tightly against his body, he let her go there heavy breathing mingling between them. His voice a hoarse, broken whisper,

"My turn."

NOTE: The italics are for Dark Ichigo.