The dance had been a success. Or she was told. Hisana stood behind a stage to watch the rest of the performance. Her black silk hem clutched in one hand, Hisana managed to pull a coat over her wobbly limbs. She had felt woozy through the entire dance. She scanned the crowd for a familiar face but saw none. Back stage other dancers stood in clusters, keeping a wide distance between them and her.

"Didn't you notice how Lord Kuchiki was absent from the dance?"

"His lordship must have been too embarrassed to show up here today."

"Yet his wife outperformed everyone. What a show off. Imagine what she would've danced like if he had been here."

"She must be pretty shameless."

"You have to be careful of the innocent-looking girls."

"She's a woman without much, not even a title, I heard."

"Those types of women are scarier. They have nothing but tenacity."

"I bet he's regretting his choice of bride now,"

Hisana bowed her already weary head, she leaned against the wall for some warmth against the cold wind that carried the frosty gossip.

"Hisana?" She turned her head and saw Captain Ukitake, rosy-cheeked in his winter clothes.

"Captain?" She forced a smile and he caught her as she began to sway.

"Here, sit down." He pulled out a seat and gave her some food which she waved away. "Your dance was amazing. How did you do it if you were feeling this poorly?"

"I was shaking the entire time." She smiled lazily.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" He lowered his voice and she bit her lip.

"I keep blacking out after each fit." Ukitake took a sharp intake of air as though her words had driven a knife into him. She looked at him doe-eyed, expectant for his usual comforting words, but she saw only fear.

"I've been cured." He whispered and she grinned a radiant smile that only tortured him further.

"That's excellent news! Do you have the formula to make more?"

"It was an anonymous gift sent to me in this odd soup. I tried to give some to you but Byakuya accidentally spilled it."

"Oh."

"I'm still working to recreate it. It wasn't his fault. There was a woman under his desk that caused him to jump-"

"A woman?" Hisana's brow arched upwards and panic voided Ukitake's face of his pink flush.

"It's not like that!" He laughed nervously. "It was his eighth seat, who, misunderstanding the circumstances-"

"Kameyo?"

"Yes, that was her."

"She was trying to seduce him." Hisana stated coldly. Her expression lost its warmth, turning dull and expressionless.

"I'm afraid so. I hate that I told you. Byakuya was not compliant. He was adamant in his fealty to you." Ukitake waited for her hopeful expression to come back. But it did not.

"I only have a short time left, don't I?" He couldn't bring himself to respond but his silence was the answer. "Tell me, how is my sister?"

"Happy." He smiled honestly. "Lieutenant Abarai is taking good care of her." Hisana offered a half smile at the news.

"I'm very tired, Captain. If you wouldn't mind leaving me in peace,"

He reluctantly nodded, "I do wish you peace." He squeezed her hand in farewell and left.

With her husband nowhere in sight, Hisana was left to fend for herself at the post-celebratory feast back on the estate. She spoke as minimally as she possibly could and no one recognized her as Lady Kuchiki after she had changed into a regular set of clothes. All except Lady Mi who had been enjoying multiple drinks and sweets with her visiting friends in the intimate crowd. She spotted Hisana in the shadow of the tiled eaves.

"Lady Kuchiki!" She exclaimed loudly, bowing. Hisana shifted her eyes uninterestedly to Lady Mi and merely nodded in her direction when she saw all the turned heads. Lady Mi sauntered over to her with two of her cronies. Hisana sighed, still too weak to bother expending energy onto a woman lacking all sobriety.

"You're drunk, Lady Mi. Return to your room."

"What are you, my mother?"

"You'll shame Lord Kuchiki with your behavior." Hisana whispered gently at Mi's big reactions and gesticulations.

Lady Mi threw her wine in Hisana's face.

"The only one here shaming Lord Kuchiki is you. Peasant." Her friends burst out laughing after failed attempts in the etiquette of hiding their amusement. Many people stopped to stare and whisper. Mi leaned in to mutter, "It hasn't changed that I am still more beautiful than you. With a face like that it's a wonder you could attract even a pig." As she walked away, Hisana's poised maids quickly ushered Hisana away into a private room to clean everything off of her clothes and out of her hair.

She heard gasps coming from the partygoers and the doors to her room opened and then closed. The maids turned to leave and Hisana slowly turned to face her husband.

He walked up to her and began cleaning her up himself.

"Noblewomen, especially unmarried ones, are like that. You must be prepared to divert situations like that."

"I'm sorry. I have shamed you."

"No. Your dancing was perfect."

"You were there? I didn't see you."

"You didn't put a hair out of line. People won't stop complimenting you in front of me."

"Only in front of you." He dropped his hands. "It's not just her petty jealousy that makes her hate me. It's my origins."

"Just because you weren't born under a certain roof doesn't make you any less valuable to me." Recalling the angry words she spoke to him years earlier, she flushed and bit her lip to restrain force back a smirk.

"I was hoping you'd have blacked that out of your memory by now."

"How could I have forgotten the way you deeply insulted me? I believe you told me how prideful, arrogant, and lazy I was after you were the one who showed up late." Hisana's shoulders shook as she bowed her head to laugh.

"I am very tired. Would you mind walking me to my room?"

"Like the autumn festival?"

"If you would be so kind, my lord."

Hisana rose from the bed and slid on her robe. She walked to the privy, still able to hear the party going strong from the other side of the estate.

When she came out and took a detour to get a better glimpse of the full moon and sky full of stars, she was grabbed and pulled into a room.

Hisana took a panicked, shaky breath of air upon seeing the fifth squad captain in the shadows of the dark room, bedecked in clothes for the celebration.

Aizen pinned Hisana against a wall with his body. She dully noted how much stronger it felt. Or perhaps it only felt that way because she herself was growing weaker. With her loss of her central spiritual pressure and with the poison making steady progress in her respiratory system, he felt like a wall of steel smashing against her.

"I must say I'm impressed with how clever you've been. Hiding beneath my nose like this. You almost outsmarted me for a time there."

"My intentions have nothing to do with you."

"You mean marriage? Marriage to one of the most infamous Captains of the thirteen court guard squads." He smirked but his eyes held something almost undetectable. But it was there sure enough: jealousy. "You're going to tell me you didn't do that for your own selfish purposes?"

"If you're implying I only married him to feel protected then you're dead wrong," She struggled beneath his imposing frame. His smile flipped, his eyebrows flat-lined.

"Of course not, you actually have feelings for the captain. I'd keep in mind that he only married you because you fascinate him. You fascinate many men. You're just his little experiment. He comes from high nobility- the bluest blood flows in his veins. You shouldn't fool yourself by thinking any of your feelings are reciprocated by someone like him. Besides, no one accepts you as a lady. The alcohol in your hair from the fiasco earlier proves as much-"

"Don't be stupid!" Her voice got more high-pitched than she would've liked. "Byakuya doesn't take oaths lightly. Something like promising me his troth-no," She shook her head. "He'd never just give that to anybody-"Aizen dropped his head back and let a terrifying laugh spew from his throat.

"Your faith in him is moving. However, Byakuya Kuchiki swore off the idea of marriage rather publically in his earlier years. It only swayed when he was given tempting prospects from other high nobility. His oaths mean nothing if he can't keep them. His marriage to you is proof of that. But he's only been known to break his promises when he wants something out of it. Perhaps it was lust for you…no, he's too sentimental for just pleasing sex," Aizen's face lightened in epiphany. "He wants a reciprocated love, how sweet,"

"W-What? Are you implying that I don't love my husband?"

"Oh, no doubt about your love for the idea of him and the comforts that come with him. But you're not in love with him. You don't want a polished man any more than you want to be a noble. No, you're too rough for loving someone of nobility. You want something wild; some untamed fiery courting from some man just as rough and just as untamed as you and your 78th district origins." Aizen kissed her with confidence and precision. It was just as hypnotically mechanical as she remembered and she pushed him away with all of her strength which only garnered a few inches between them.

"To hell with you," She breathed, her huffs of struggled breaths filled the muggy air around them. The silk on her body clung to her sticky, sweaty skin. He looked her up and down like some delectable morsel.

"I want you to ride me like the whore you are." He laughed amusedly as she narrowed her wide eyes. "Consider this, pet," Her expression darkened at his nickname for her. "Despite the secrecy and fog that shrouds your unannounced marriage to the leader of the Kuchiki clan and the lack of witnesses save a few people, you're probably not even legally married to him. He might've ran a fake ceremony in order to appease his curiosities about you-" Hisana couldn't take Aizen's poisonous words anymore and she spit in his eye. She broke free and picked up her silken hem, storming away with shoulders squared and neck strained. He took a step towards her and she backed up.

"Why are you here?"

"I've found you so there's no point in continuing to hide. You will come away with me to be set aside as my mistress, as I already planned." Hisana snorted an indignant chortle.

"I will not obey you."

"You look pale, Hisana. Could it be the poison is nearly fully spread within you? I have the cure. I gave it to Captain Ukitake and I'll give it to you." He took another step and she backed up once more. "All you have to do is come with me." He casually reached his hand out towards her, making her flinch. He looked at her as though he was trying to soothe a spooked animal.

"I appreciate you curing Captain Ukitake, but your leverage with me has failed. You're weren't desperate were you?"

"You're going to die, Hisana." He said coldly. "You need to be cured soon."

"How big of you to be concerned for my wellbeing. Perhaps, if you were so frightened for me, you shouldn't have poisoned me. Then we wouldn't be standing here, on the Kuchiki estate."

Aizen smiled deviously. "I must've rubbed off more on you than I first thought. Your manipulative nature is blooming marvelously. It's good to know that you did indeed only marry Captain Kuchiki for privacy and protection."

Hisana pushed her black hair back out of her face, scowling angrily at his smug expression, grasping feebly for the lowest insult she could think of in the heat of the flustered moment. "He's still better in bed than you." Aizen laughed bristly and deeply.

"Oh dear, you haven't even let me try yet. But if you come with me-" He tried to touch her arm and she pivoted away.

"If you touch me one more time, I will tell Byakuya all about you. Every detail, every word."

"That would be suicide."

"At least I would be taking you down with me." She said sternly. Her bluff was fragile and dangerous as she still hadn't seen the true extent of her husband's power, but it seemed to have her desired effect. "Now, are you going to leave the estate, or do I have to scream for the guards? Then everyone will find out how Captain Aizen trespassed onto the most illustrious estate in the Soul Society." He stared at her for a moment and then left.

Hisana hurried in the opposite direction, trying to slow her speeding heartbeat as she returned to her bed, greeting Byakuya as calmly as she could before laying down to sleep.

Hisana was walking in the gardens only hours later. The pale winter hues around her seemed to glow in the dusk. She shouldn't have been up that early but she couldn't shut her mind off and thus she barely slept a wink. She passed her favorite part of the gardens and stood by a frozen pond to watch the koi swimming beneath the layer of ice.

A shadow kept moving out of the corner of her eye. The moaning of a tree branch kept creaking on and off in the morning breeze. After a few minutes of the sound perturbing her serenity and the moving shadow polluting her calm, she followed the sound and shadow to the source.

She stood unmoved, unsure of what she was looking at. Until the horrible reality sunk in.

Lady Mi dangled from a tree branch so that her feet barely grazed the blades of grass growing beneath. Hisana should've screamed or flew into a panic. Instead she approached the body cautiously, examining a blood stain that pooled beneath her armpit. If it was suicide by hanging, why the blood?

A red bead of blood trailed its way from beneath Mi's silk sleeve. Hisana realized that Mi was wearing the cream robe she received in the box that Byakuya sent her dancing costume in. She also noticed a piece of paper folded neatly inside the woman's swollen fist. She pried it free and unfolded it. Written in Mi's blood was a simple message:

I am not more beautiful than Hisana.

Hisana's panic came fast upon reading it and she quickly shoved it into back into the rigor-mortis fist.

"Lady Kuchiki? What are you doing up so-" Hisana spun around to see her husband's retainer staring in mortification. "What have you done?"

"What? I didn't do this. I happened upon her!" The retainer summoned the guards. With them roused Byakuya, who stumbled upon his retainer ushering Hisana to a private room like a naughty child before her up inside the room.

Byakuya looked at his retainer.

"What is going on?"

"Your wife has slain an enemy of hers on this estate."

"Excuse me?" Byakuya warned, his glare solid and threatening.

"Lady Mi's body!" The retainer pointed toward the low-hanging branch where the guards were hesitantly looking for ways to remove the corpse with care.

"Tell them to not touch the body."

"But my lord-"

"It will be seen as tampering with evidence. If this was a murder than it is punishable by death and I will not have any eyes looking in my wife's direction. It's likely a suicide." The retainer bowed and Byakuya went into the room where he saw Hisana quake in fear.

"If it was suicide, why would she come outside to do it?" Hisana whispered. "You and I both know it was murder."

"Hisana?" She looked at him and couldn't believe the expression she found in his features. He was doubting her innocence. She could tell in the way he kept his distance and by the way his chest puffed out.

"How can you look at me like that? Like I'm the culprit?"

"Are you?"

"Of course not! Why do you suddenly doubt me?"

"I don't want to doubt you. It's just that, before I ever brought you here I found out something about a brothel proprietor that I'd never wanted to mention." He saw her complexion pale. "You've killed before."

"Yes." She admitted bitterly, spitting as she spoke. "I murdered him."

"I know and I don't question it. That was a bad man. But if you did this you need to tell me at once or-"

"I'll ruin the Kuchiki name forever?" She scoffed angrily. "You should've thought about that before you took a common, murderess whore for a wife!" He reached out to her, wholly empathetic and opening his mouth to argue her claims of self-deprecation but she held up her hand stiffly, like a move in one of her many dances. He dropped his shoulders and retreated from the room. When she was sure there was no one outside to hear, she collapsed to the ground coughing and sobbing rancorously into her cupped hands.

Aizen was after her in ways worse than physical assault. This was why she could never allow herself to love her husband. She would only continue to bring him pain, woe, and humiliation.

"The Central 46 have gathered, my lord." Soga informed solemnly. Byakuya sat in his nightclothes. All of his advisors did. It was the most whimsical meeting perhaps in the clan's history.

"Are there any other suspects?" Byakuya asked, but his voice was bereft of hope.

"The evidence is not in her ladyship's favor." Taira sat with his arms in his sleeves, his long, unbound hair made him appear almost feminine. "No outsider has access to such a securely guarded estate-"

"What about during the New Year's celebration? Someone could have hid themselves away, waiting for the opportunity to strike."

"Unlikely. Surely someone would have noticed them smuggling food."

"Then go summon every cook and scullery maid. Now. Question them until someone confesses."

"Lord Kuchiki, doesn't that seem unreasonable?" Yano asked and Byakuya turned a devastating stare onto him.

"My wife is a murder suspect. Doesn't that seem unreasonable?" The other advisors kept their mouths wisely shut as Yano kowtowed multiple times in reparation for his outburst before leaving the meeting to carry out the order.

"Forgive me for any offense, my lord, but has her ladyship given you any reason to doubt her innocence in the past few weeks?" Ijiri inquired delicately.

"We are all aware of her violence towards Lady Mi. That's all the Central Chambers will see. That and the note found in Lady Mi's hand." Minase whispered, already beaten, and as wide eyed as though he was looking at a ghost. "This family will be ruined."

"We've had other servants come forward from that day. Many claim that Lady Mi provoked her ladyship to the most extreme."

"Have these servants' testimonies been sent to the Chambers?" Byakuya asked.

"Yes, my lord."

"Then leave. All of you." They all quietly bowed and left him alone in his room.

He could never tell anyone of the brothel owner. But why had Hisana slain him? What motive did she have? He loathed to think that she could have sold her body once on the streets to lice-infested, brutish whoremongers. But if she had, she wouldn't have had a mack, she would've been independent in order to enter the Soul Reaper Academy freely. Therefore she couldn't have had a hustler to get rid of because of poor treatment. The mystery grew shadier and shadier as he struggled to make sense of it.

He felt intuitively that Hisana was innocent of the crime that was now being placed against her. It was the first murder that she had so readily confessed to that was weighing on him. He was beginning to believe that someone had framed his wife in order to do serious harm to her. It must've been the person he still doubted existed. The man who had already done her grave harm.

They both awaited the outcome of the Central 46 gathering as well as the culprit's sentence. It came early March as Hisana was resting in her bed after a string of particularly dreadful coughing attacks.

The Central 46 messenger came to the door and called Byakuya outside. Hisana heard raised voiced as an argument ensued from whatever the verdict must have been. She opened one of her deeply dark-circled eyes to the crack between the partitions to see Byakuya gesturing passionately towards her bed. The messenger had a bowed head, unable to look to where he was pointing. A few, more calm, words were exchanged before the messenger left.

He stood outside for a while before coming back to sit beside her. She huffed as she went through a few moments of labored breathing that was becoming the norm, like contractions in giving birth, without the pregnancy and ten times the agony.

"What is the ruling?"

"You've been found guilty." Hisana didn't know what to say or how to feel. She sensed there was something more as hesitation danced through his features.

"The sentence?"

"Death. They want to execute you in two days' time."

"Death?" Hisana was surprisingly underwhelmed.

"I told the messenger that in your condition it would be impossible for you to lift a taller woman to a tree branch out of your reach. They won't hear it, or so he informed me."

"They have a vendetta against me."

"That is against the law."

"They make the laws." Hisana reminded.

"Why would they have a vendetta against you?"

"Perhaps the man hunting me is more powerful than he led on-"

"He doesn't exist."

"Not fully." Byakuya raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry about that now."

"We must focus on bringing you back to health."

The day passed with warmer weather. Hisana had plenty of time alone to her thoughts though Byakuya was never out of a call's reach. He was constantly coming and going from her room to talk to people quietly and authoritatively but she was too distracted to inquire what these conversations entailed.

Some of her closer maids came to pay their respects and goodbyes, assuring her that they knew her to be innocent of her charges, which deeply moved Hisana, but at the same time pushed her farther into her thoughts. While Byakuya was out she had her maids help her stand and walk her around the gardens very slowly seeming her fragile condition.

She smiled at every bud of green she saw and at the lively birds that flittered from branch to ground to build nests.

It was a picturesque day, a cheery façade to the darkness that was closing in around her. She giggled shortly at the bittersweet happiness her maids showed at the freshly growing spring gardens.

"Oh!" One maid exclaimed and Hisana and the others looked at the petite girl with a long braid. "Is today not your anniversary, my lady?"

"My anniversary?"

"Your wedding anniversary!" Hisana thought for a moment and realized the maid was right.

"I suppose it is."

"It's a shame his lordship is so busy on this day." One maid added and silence fell around them once more.

So it has been one year. Hisana felt her heart contract at the thought. It had been one year of her marriage. It should've been filled with newlywed marital bliss. Of comforting words and stolen kisses during public ceremonies and gatherings. But their marriage had consisted of lies, betrayal, anger, and paranoia. She wanted to die out in the streets where she would cause no one pain, but she selfishly was grateful that she had the comfort to die in a place such as the one she stood in, surrounded by the beauty of a barely-thawed spring with people to at least feign concern.

Suddenly a deep unease came over her and she knew another attack was coming.

She coughed into the linen she stored in her robes and was speechless at what she saw.

"My lady?" The maids flew into a panic but she dismissed them frantically, hurrying towards her room.

Byakuya looked up from his desk in the bed chamber to see his wife standing in the doorway.

"Hisana?" She didn't respond. Her face was pale. She was visibly shivering and so nauseous that she couldn't remember what life was like before. "Hisana." He stood up, sensing something horribly wrong. He tossed the haori from his white sleeping clothes as he walked towards her. Something moved from her hand and he saw, as it fell to the floor, that it was her handkerchief spotted with blood.

Hisana opened her mouth to say his name, whether to release fear or for comfort, she couldn't figure out which. Her nausea rose up and dribbled out of her mouth and nose, the blood soaked the mats below her as she coughed. She collapsed face first onto the ground and Byakuya dropped to his knees to pull her up so that her head was on his arm, staining his sleeve a solid crimson. Tears flowed involuntarily from her eyes from the searing effort.

The blood kept coming.

She heard him shouting but Hisana's mind would not process the meaning of the words he was speaking.

She woke up some time later. There was an electric spark in the air that kept popping and crackling. It had to have been the middle of the night. She saw Byakuya asleep in a sitting position beside her. A warmth spread through her body from a singular source and it took her a moment to sort through the fog clouding her mind to realize that it was from his hand wrapped around hers. She gave a weak squeeze and he awoke with a start. Seeing her eyes open he afforded her one of his rarest smiles.

"Was I dreaming?"

"I'm afraid not," She croaked. The voice was unrecognizable and not her own. "My execution is in two days. How am I not in a prison cell?-"

"They would have to take you over my dead body." He reminded fiercely.

"You told them I was contagious?" She smiled coyly.

"I might have impulsively spoke without first collecting my thoughts." She let out a strangled laugh and found that her lungs wouldn't allow her to hardly take in any air. She realized the spark was actually a gurgling coming from her mouth. She didn't need to be a professional to understand what it meant.

"I've ruined your robe." She gestured to the blood-stained robe he still had draped over his body.

"My retainer has always rebuked my monochromatic wardrobe."

She looked at him. "Can I ask you something? The most selfish thing a person could ask?"

"I will do anything you wish of me."

"If I don't die before the execution-"

"Hisana." He warned wearily.

"Will you allow me to spare the Kuchiki clan's honor and mine…and kill me?" He thought for a very long moment before taking her hand in both of his.

"Yes."

Author's Note: I'm very sorry for the time lapses, the poor editing, and choppiness of this chapter. I'm afraid some of it won't make sense to you all. I might go back and re-arrange some things but I need to get this ball rolling so I can start posting Part III. If I do go back and edit this, rest assured that no major plot point will be changed. I'll probably just ease my transitions and make the timeline a bit clearer. Anddd fix spelling/grammar mistakes, which I'm sure I made but I've looked at this chapter for so long and I've been planning it for so long that I'm sick of messing with it. So I'm done with it for now. Excuse my laziness. Feel free to ask questions and I will clear my laziness up as best as possible!

Please leave feedback. It means the absolute world to me. After some sickly travels I'm going to need it.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN. Aizen is an ass-hat fo sho.