Solitude
"Such is our fate, to be alone."
The greater the reiatsu of a soul, the longer it stayed on in Soul Society. He was not ignorant of this fact. After all, he had spent nigh on a hundred and eighty years living in this limbo between one life and the next, and enough time was left to him to ponder the memories he had created, both in this life, and the previous one.
He had always been a lone wolf. Despite his seemingly cordial relationship with most of his fellow Captains, there were only a few whom he genuinely liked, and only two whom he genuinely loved and respected. Among the Lieutenants, it was a similar story- there weren't many whom he considered more than colleagues, and even fewer whom he saw as family.
Fear was not something that dictated his actions. He would be lying if he said he was never afraid, but suppressing and staying in control of his fear was something he had always been an expert at.
Yet, it was his nature as a loner that often kept him awake late into the night, even as Isane slept peacefully, occasionally murmuring something, beside him. It was only around her or the other three members of their tight, dysfunctionally functional family that he would let down his mask of quiet courage to reveal his true fears. It was only around them that he could reveal the vulnerable man hidden behind his quietly badass exterior.
But for how long? He wondered. He had already lost 2 of his family to the jaws of death. All right, maybe one of them wasn't dead as such, but still, she wouldn't ever be there on the shoulder of his brother-in-arms, giving everyone one silly, yet fun nicknames ever again. Powerful as they were, even the others would never end up living as long as he would.
It was this thought that sent a chill down his spine every time. Him having to oversee the funerals of the woman he had entrusted his heart with at some point hopefully not in the near future, and his brother, either when someone else powerful enough to kill him finally got to him, or, if he was lucky, of old age. And still, he would endure, for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years longer, eventually meeting his end at a time when no one he'd loved and cared for would be there to hold his hand in his last moments, to smile at him as his eyes closed for the last time in this life, and grant him a funeral with the same honour with which he had lived his life.
Dying wasn't something he was afraid of. After all, as a warrior, he danced with death every other day, but having to die alone, left behind by all one loved, with no familiar face to send them into the next life or even bury them was the worst way to die by far.
Not many would ever know of this fear. He would suppress it as he had always done, and if anyone wondered why he was as protective of the current generation of the Gotei as he was, they could guess whatever they wished.
No matter what happened, he would would stand beside them. Even if it cost him everything, he would gladly die knowing that at least, for once in his afterlife, he wasn't alone.
A/N- This is DARK. Initially, it was supposed to be published much earlier under a completely different name, but I chose not to. Please read and review!