*Rant alert* A/N: This is the THIRD BLOODY TIME I have written this chapter. The first time after I saved, the document was corrupted when I tried to open it. So I rewrote. The second time I have written practically the entire frickin' thing, with only the final sentence to go, the entire computer had a system error and I had to reboot. Then the ENTIRE DOCUMENT was corrupted into pound signs, including my saved copies.

ALL MY SAVED COPIES.

Hence, if this particular chapter seems crazy, it's basically because I've gone nuts writing it.

Thanks for reading the rant... we're back to Gin/Kira.

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Kira knocked on the door softly. Though it was silent inside the office, it was a busy, occupied silence; Gin was working on getting the division ready for the audit. Still, the captain seemed to have heard Kira and smiled at the blond, waving him in.

"Hey. You're early."

The younger man bowed slightly before taking the indicated seat. "I completed the tasks you set me. The files are ready for the audit team. I saw Komatsuzaki-san leaving the office with a lot of boxes in a hurry earlier, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to stop him. Was I?"

Gin stacked his papers neatly and got up, walking around to the other side of the office desk. Leaning against the table, he cocked his head and regarded Kira. "It's all right. I've just transferred him to a different division."

"Oh?" Kira wondered why. Komatsuzaki seemed all right, keeping mostly to himself but doing his work. Still, Gin must have his own reasons.

"Forget him," Gin said suddenly, his fingers drumming on the surface of the desk. When he next spoke he sounded rather irritated. "I've been thinking about how to help you and Wabisuke come to an understanding. Unfortunately there is no place in the third division that will allow you to meditate without interruption."

Kira looked at his hands in his lap. His fingers were gripped together tightly, and he forced himself to relax each digit. "We can use the meditation room behind the training arena," he suggested.

Gin snorted and said, "Don't think I'm blind or stupid. The seated officers are harassing you."

Glancing up at the captain, Kira was torn between being defensive and wanting to be comforted. Then an inner voice raged at him for being so reliant on Gin. What kind of lieutenant couldn't defend himself? He looked down again, angry at his own weakness. "They're not harassing me."

"Liar." Gin tilted Kira's chin up with two slender fingers, forcing the blue eyes to meet Gin's knowing, hidden gaze. "I have eyes and ears everywhere in this division. I'm not gonna deal with them – yet – but I will not expose you to the risk of interference when you're deep under, when you're in conversation with Wabisuke."

The blond shinigami was about to assent when he saw the deadly intent flash within the blue-green depths. Dealing with them, Kira realized, meant that Gin would kill them. Just as he killed Asou.

The nightmares, the blood, the pain... Kira winced inwardly. He didn't know whether to be thrilled that his captain was so protective of him or to be terrified at the lengths at which Gin would go to for a mere bedmate. What did that say about Gin's devotion to Aizen then? What would the silver-haired male do for his beloved Aizen-taichou?

Gin was still waiting for a response. Kira reached up and touched the slender, chilly fingers carefully, hoping that his words would not be misconstrued."Don't deal with them."

The ubiquitous smile tightened. "You expect me to stand by and let them walk free?"

"No," Kira said. He thought about what he meant. Did he want them to walk away from their verbal torment? No, but he did not want Gin to punish them unduly. No... what he wanted was more than that. "Don't deal with them yourself. Let me at them."

For some reason that pleased Gin and the older man tipped Kira's face up further to kiss him. It was a sensual but not passionate kiss, mere touching of mouth to mouth, a pressure on the lips. The warm sensation lingered and pooled in Kira's belly. For the first time since the assault, he felt a bit more calm and at peace with himself.

When the captain drew away, there was an unfathomable look in the pale, pointed face. Kira didn't try to decipher it. To Kira's pleased surprise, Gin pulled Kira in for another kiss, and this time the older male's fingers wove into the blond's hair, his long nails lightly scratching the scalp, sending little arcs of desire shooting down Kira's spine. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the kiss, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip in an unconscious attempt to invite Gin for more.

However, Gin stopped the kiss and pulled back.

"There are other meditation chambers. Unfortunately there are also other people using them at the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth; I can't stand Kurasawa or Tousen, Soifon can't stand me, and Kyoraku-san and Ukitake-san aren't around when I want to ask their permission. I won't let you go near the mad people at the twelfth and the eleventh had long turned theirs to a sake storehouse." The silver-haired shinigami seemed uncomfortable as he let out a long breath. "So I asked Aizen-taichou."

"I, uh, got that bit when you started talking about the other captains," Kira answered teasingly. Did Gin really think Kira to be that petty? Besides, Kira knew who Gin truly loved. He saw the proof of it every night, that strange sinuous tattoo a blatant reminder of a harsh truth."Shall we go?"

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The meditation chamber at the fifth division seemed rather run-down on the outside, being situated in a storehouse, but since there were very few shinigami who dealt with the stores housekeeping tended to be lax. At least it was clean – the unranked shinigami had learned well under Gin's tutelage. The third division was becoming much cleaner too. Gin tolerated little.

The room was very similar to the one in the third division, save for the black drapes with reiatsu-limiting threads woven into the fabric itself. The space felt enclosed and shielded from the outside world, and Kira wondered if all the meditation chambers were alike. He had not viewed the third division's room yet, and Gin seemed reluctant to let him in it.

The idea of an interior space solely for meditation seemed archaic to Kira. It was such a waste of space. Yet each division had its own – even though most seemed unwilling to use it, and the eleventh had repurposed it – so there had to have been a time when the rooms were needed. Given how Soul Society had no qualms having single-function buildings like the Tower of Penitence, meditation chambers must have been an affordable luxury for the Gotei Thirteen.

Aizen led Kira to the dais in the center and told him to sit comfortably. "If you need assistance, or if you feel that the session must be terminated, knock on it five times. It will send a signal to the main office and someone will come get you, even if I am out. Otherwise, once we exit and I key in the locking sequence, no one else can enter. When you are in meditation, you may forget that the dais is always just under you, so be aware of your surroundings – both in your mind and outside, here, in the real world."

"Yes Aizen-taichou. Thank you for lending me the room."

"You're welcome," said Aizen warmly. "Few people like the meditation rooms nowadays; they prefer the great outdoors, but there are so many distractions. Or they like to use their own sleeping areas."

As Kira settled down on the dais, the two captains conversed in hushed tones. Then Aizen led Gin out of the room, leaving Kira alone in the white room with black drapes. An uneasy sense of claustrophobia closed in about the blond, but he was stalwart in his decision. Today, one way or another, he would make sure Wabisuke stopped acting up within him. He needed his sword to work, and he had to pass his lieutenant assessment. There was no other means to prove his worth to the loudmouths and vicious gossips.

The zanpakuto spirit snarled when Kira closed his eyes. :What do you want?:

I want to talk, Kira concentrated. I want to know what's wrong with you.

:With me?: Wabisuke snorted derisively. :Are you certain that the problem lies with me and not, say, with YOU? You pathetic little worm of a shinigami... you just can't see, can you?:

Kira bristled at Wabisuke's mocking tone. You are the zanpakuto spirit here and I am your wielder. What the FUCK is your problem with that?

:Why don't you come in here and find-:

An unexpected touch on his knee jerked Kira back from his argument with Wabisuke. He was not aware of it, but his lip curled and his blue eyes were snapping with wild fury at the intrusion, before he recognized Gin hunkered down in front of him.

The captain looked concerned and shushed softly, leaning forward to brush his nose over Kira's. That action, more than the soothing croons, calmed the blond down. Gin smiled fractionally and whispered, "Izuru, darling, look at me."

The blond inhaled deeply and breathed out, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders.

Gin held Kira's face in his hands tenderly, murmuring, "I need you to meditate."

"I know," said Kira, wondering why something this obvious had to be said.

"Focus on the question I'm about to ask you. Do not attempt to leave the room until you have answered it, all right?"

Kira did not comment. He was already full of questions for Wabisuke, so one more wasn't really a problem.

"Izuru, why do you want others to bow before you?"

That threw the blond shinigami off. "What? I don't-" Kira protested feebly, but his protestations were cut off by Gin's mouth and tongue pushing at him for another kiss. This one was different, deep and passionate, and Kira reached for his captain to hold him tighter. To his mild disappointment, Gin pulled away and smiled fondly at the younger male.

"Think on it, darling," said Gin. "I'll come and get you before dinner."

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The dais was really still there when Kira entered his internal world where Wabisuke resided. This time, the wind was ripping at furious speeds through the pine and fir forests while snow had piled up in deep drifts, which Kira found out the hard way. The dais was sitting on top of the drifts and when he got up and stepped off, he found himself sinking to snow midway up his thighs.

Wabisuke was nowhere to be seen.

Peering into the gloom, Kira tried calling out for his zanpakuto spirit but found that the wind tore the sound into inaudible bits. However, even as the air current whipped his hair into his face and speared icy chill into his bones, Kira could make out, just on the edge of hearing, a wild howling wail.

He knew it was Wabisuke's call. The problem was that he could not tell where it was coming from. As he waded forward, his legs growing numb from the cold, he thought about where the spirit could be. It didn't help that his inner world was in a tumultuous state at the moment; icy flakes bit into exposed skin and Kira had to squint whenever he looked into the distance, his vision further impaired by his damaged left eye.

Kira gathered reiatsu to go into shunpo, but just as he was almost ready to move a sudden weight landed across his shoulders, throwing him forward face first into the snow. Coughing and spluttering, Kira managed to push himself up. He found himself wrapped about with thick chains which was connected to a large boulder.

"What the hell are you playing at, Wabisuke?" the blond muttered angrily. Try as he might he could not disentangle the chains from his torso. Shaking the snow from his face and bracing himself as he lifted the stone onto his shoulders, he began trudging forward slowly. If he thought wading through deep snow was bad before, it was now akin to crawling through hip-deep wet cement.

By now Kira had lost all sense of time. He scanned the surrounds as best as he could, but all he saw was white snow and midnight blue sky, occasionally punctuated by the spires of evergreen. This was his world, but Kira was lost. He did not belong here.

"What am I supposed to do?" wondered the shinigami aloud, his voice disappearing with the howling wind. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"Good questions," Wabisuke hissed beside Kira's ear. The zanpakuto spirit's sudden appearance startled Kira so much that he lost his balance and fell to the side. The boulder on his back rolled off and Kira choked as one chain collided roughly against his neck. The blond shinigami got to his feet as Wabisuke perched on top of the boulder and stared at Kira. The spirit's usually madness-filled gaze was strangely sane, but malignant and hostile. It bared its teeth in an approximation of a grin. "You tell me."

"What's all this about?" asked Kira, refusing to rise to the bait. "What do you want?

Wabisuke's long hair streamed and tossed about in the wind, and the ragged fabric passing off as its clothes were fluttering violently. "What do I want?" it rasped. Reaching behind its back, it drew out a long shape and threw it at Kira's feet.

It was Wabisuke the blade, in its unreleased form. Kira frowned and peered at the spirit warily. It couldn't be asking for a fight, could it? Kira was not ready for that.

"Pick it up," Wabisuke ordered in a snarl.

The blond moved as though he was an automaton. The edge of the sword shone despite the lack of light.

"End it all." The spirit crouched lower, almost curling into itself. "Kill yourself and end this misery. Yours and mine."

Kira stared at the blade. His eyes looked back at him, blue and wide and unseeing.

Why?

That blue gaze held no answers. After a very long moment, Kira looked up at Wabisuke. It was still in that feral crouch, its face deadly serious.

"Go on," Wabisuke urged in a sibilant hiss. "Simple thing to do, weakling. Stab yourself right here – your God has marked the spot for you."

"Marked the spot?" echoed Kira dumbly. His left hand slid up the column of his throat on its own accord, locating the small nick where Gin had pricked him with the blade that night...

"Right there," the zanpakuto spirit affirmed. "Go on. Do it."

And again the shinigami's hand moved as if on its own. Kira watched, hypnotized by the play of light along the edge and closed his eyes, his lips parting on a sigh. The blade brushed over his Adam's apple and then the tip rested under his jaw, just against his jugular.

And stopped.

Kira's eyes snapped open and he glared at Wabisuke. "What the fuck are you playing at?" he demanded in anger. The sword he was gripping was flung aside. "I fought hard to save my life. Why on earth would I want to kill myself?"

"Because you're trying to kill me!" roared Wabisuke abruptly. It leaped from the boulder to shove Kira backwards. The deep snow drifts surrounded them on all sides and all Kira could see was the raging face of Wabisuke less than three inches from his own. The skeletal hands were deceptively strong, fingers digging into Kira's flesh painfully. "You weak, pathetic loser, you can't even begin to contemplate what you've been doing to me! You whore!"

Feeling trapped, Kira struggled but was unable to throw Wabisuke off. He could feel nausea and panic rising within; the chains bound him, trapped his limbs; he had no weapon to defend himself; Wabisuke was too strong; there was no escape-

The horror returned with a vengeance. Kira screamed until he had no breath left in him, and he kept screaming. His throat turned raw as he kept shrieking incoherent despair into his attacker's face. His body thrashed about and he fought, his fingers trying to claw upwards, his legs kicking out futilely.

When he was finally spent of energy, he lay there gasping, shallow breaths that made his chest rise and fall too rapidly. Tears streaked his cheeks and his mouth was open, drawing in lungfuls of air that did nothing to calm him down.

Through it all Wabisuke had not moved an iota. It had pinioned Kira and was still pinning the blond to the ground. Its thin legs straddled the pale young male and its eyes searched for something in the wild, terrified blue gaze.

"Why are you afraid of this?" it asked, almost forlornly. "Why are you ashamed of having lived through this? Of being strong enough to survive?" It stared at Kira, its madness fading away and revealing a genuine sorrow inside. "Why are you afraid of me?"

"I-I... I don't, I don't know," Kira burbled, crying freely. "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't... get off me, get the fuck off me, let me go-let, let me go... I need, I need Gin. I n-need Gin, please, Gin, where is he-"

"You are safe in here," Wabisuke stated, not releasing his prisoner. "There is no place safer than here. But you are afraid, and you are ashamed."

Kira sniffed and blinked through sticky lashes. "I don't... I'm not. I'm not ashamed – not, not ashamed of you."

"Then why are you hiding your strength?" the spirit demanded hotly. "When those morons mouthed off, you could have beaten them to an inch of their lives! Even if I was not with you, I know how strong you are! And you torment yourself with feelings of inadequacy and weakness-" the words were spat out like acidic invectives "You have locked me into this storm ever since the day you woke up from your coma. And you ask me what I am playing at? What are you playing at? Being a victim? Being a shell of a loser who hides behind his God? Being a shadow, a ghost, an insubstantial whore who spreads his legs to get what he does not deserve?"

The insults slammed into Kira and he reeled from the accusations. Wabisuke was panting now, though there were no warm puffs of breath. It was eerie, almost, surrounded by cold white snow, as if lying in a coffin, with an animated corpse-like creature atop. Kira shuddered.

"You are strong and you're ashamed of using that strength," continued Wabisuke, its hissing voice low and almost hypnotic. "You are superior and yet you cower before the lesser beings. What are you afraid of?"

"Lesser... lesser beings?"

Wabisuke sneered again. "Call them what you want. Weaklings. Hangers-on. Flunkies. Those that have no power and do not dare attack those who do outright – they are beneath me. As they should be beneath you."

"Beneath..." Something clicked in Kira's overwrought mind as he shut away the unwelcome flashbacks. He muttered, "Gin said something about that."

Wabisuke cocked its head to the right. "What about it?"

"Why I want people bowing before me..." Kira shut his eyes. "I don't want them bowing before me. Not before me."

"But to bow before their guilt," Wabisuke supplied. Its voice was unexpectedly gentle. "It is an acknowledgment, isn't it?"

"Acknowledgment of what? Weakness? Guilt? Regret?" Kira's eyelids fluttered open and he regarded Wabisuke blankly.

"Of the wrongs they have done throughout their lives before they die."

"So what does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with this?"

"Because you are not acknowledging anything, Kira Izuru," snarled the spirit. "There's more to us. To me. I am not just a manifestation of fear, or guilt, or regret. I am the part of you that you lock away."

Kira shook his head. The nausea was climbing up his throat again. "I can't do this. I have... I can't do this, not like this..."

"FACE IT!" screamed Wabisuke. "FACE THIS! I am you, and until you accept that it has been done and that you are strong enough to bear it, nothing will change! And if you aren't strong enough to bear this, then fucking kill yourself and end our misery!"

Kira broke. "Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! You know nothing about it! You, you're so smug and didactic, what the hell do you know about being beaten and raped? What do you know about watching your tormentor die in front of you and not getting any closure from his end? What the fuck do you know about needing to feel? You are nothing but a figment of the imagination!"

"I know because I am you."

Wabisuke locked gazes with the pale blond whose cheeks had flushed darkly with his desperate rage.

"I know," it repeated. "I was there. I felt everything you felt. I still feel it. The pain – can't you see your pain in here? The snow has not stopped falling; the wind howls louder day by day. You are not alone, Izuru. You have me."

Kira was unable to speak. He just breathed deeply, trying to control his tears.

Wabisuke let go of Kira's wrists and touched its chilly hand to the blond's cheek. "You told your God to hurt you."

"I had to. I had to," Kira whispered. "I needed to know that I could feel something. Fear. Pain. Something."

"I understand."

"How can you? How can you when I don't understand it myself? It's sick, it is depraved and sick-"

Wabisuke gripped Kira by his neck and dragged him into a sitting position. He growled, "I am not made of good and noble intentions, blond. Everyone has a dark side; you're looking at yours now. All your rage, insecurities, fears, depravities, regrets, despair and guilt are here. All of it – me. Look at me. Really, really look. When you step out of this place, I sincerely hope you give up that bloody notion of becoming a pure, incorruptible saint. You're not. You're too dark for that. You think I'm mad? Wait till you have to balance all those conflicting desires all by yourself."

The spirit crawled off with odd grace. As it unfolded from its crouch, the serious gleam in its eyes grew redder and a wide grin spread over its gaunt face. "Anytime it gets too tough, remember the choice I gave you."

Kira clambered to his feet, but before he could ask further the spirit had disappeared. The young shinigami hugged himself, belatedly realizing that the thick chains had also dropped from his body. He was perplexed, if strangely at peace despite the wet cheeks and the shuddering that refused to stop.

"What choice did you give me?" he asked to no one in particular.