Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor any of the characters depicted within. They all belong to Kubo Tite, or Kubo Taito, however you spell it.

Chapter 2: The Meaningless

"How is he?"

Unohana Retsu, captain of the 4th Division, sighed. "It still doesn't look good. Physically, he sustained only moderate injury, but his reiatsu has been depleted to just over a quarter of its original strength, and he is still in a mental depression that I can't break."

"Will he be able to recover?" Captain Yamamoto continued to ask.

"I don't know, sir. Our knowledge of how to treat exotic effects of kidou arts in the 90's is extremely limited. It is fully possible that he will never be able to recover his full strength. And I'm even more worried about his mental stability in combat. He seems locked away in his own grief, and doesn't respond to any normal stimuli."

"Well, please continue to monitor him and inform me if anything changes," the commander-in-chief requested. Retsu nodded assent as he rose to leave her office. Once he had left, she sighed, feeling the heavy burden placed upon her shoulders by Aizen's destructive rampage through Soul Society. Nearly half of all standing forces had been severely wounded in the fight, and even some of the seated members of the various divisions had fallen to the enemy. The most prominent among them was the loss of the captain and vice-captain of the 11th division, the strongest combat unit of them all.

It had a devastating effect on shinigami morale. Already, they had been understrength in officers, with only 9 captains after the betrayal. Facing off against twice their number in enemy forces, even on home territory, had left each division decimated. And now many junior, less experienced shinigami had to be promoted to replace the losses of their superiors. But the blow to the 11th was the strongest. Madarame Ikkaku had been trying his best as the highest-ranked shinigami to hold the division together, but the entire corps had lost the will to fight. Zaraki Kenpachi – their leader, their idol – the man whom they firmly believed would never lose a fight, had not only lost to Aizen, but had been greatly weakened and even been forced to watch his vice-captain die in front of his eyes.

They had found him collapsed on the battlefield, nearly completely drained of his life force and bleeding from numerous parting wounds the Hollows had left when retreating from the other divisions. It had taken all of Retsu's power just to be able to save his life. But there was no sign of Vice Captain Kusajishi's remains anywhere. She feared the worst.

Things did not look good for the future of Soul Society.

"Where did you come from?" he asked. "Kid…"

He had been resting after a terrific battle in the Kusajishi district when he had felt a light touch on his right leg and looked down to find a small little toddler crawling over his foot to touch his sword.

"This is a sword," he told the little girl, who was batting at the dull side with her palm. "Aren't you afraid?"

"It's used to kill people," he said, looking at the corpses around him. There had been over ten of them, common bandits and robbers who thought the odds were strongly in their favour when they faced him. The fools. He would have dispatched them easily, but he had kept hearing some funny noises in the middle of the battle, like a voice calling out to him. That annoying sound nearly got his head cut off, so he had firmly told whatever it was to shut up, and went about the business of defending himself.

He looked down again at the girl. "It can kill you too," he said, seriously considering it. It would be merciful. She would never starve to death in Soul Society, but she could die of neglect. Better a quick death now than a prolonged existence of agony.

Then the kid smiled up at him, and stretched out her hand.

That instant changed his whole life. He could no more kill her than he could kill himself, or throw away his sword. With one little smile, she became a part of his life.

That last instant, she had looked terrified. She was reaching out her hand to him, begging him to get up and free her. Asking him to save her, just as he did on that first time. But he was too weak, too weak, and Aizen was too strong and there was no one else…

"Foolish, foolish captain," Aizen said, drawing his soul-slayer.

And he stabbed her right through the heart.

The world shattered into black.

"Come on, Captain, you've got to eat," Ikkaku said, holding a spoon of porridge up to his Captain's mouth. Zaraki-taichou was staring at nothing again, chewing and swallowing mechanically. Ikkaku felt a fist crushing his heart. His Captain had been like this for more than two weeks now, going through the motions of life, but with his mind absent. There didn't appear to be any way to break through the fortress of despair that had built up in his mind.

Captain Unohana had said that all they could do was to wait and hope that eventually he would come out of it himself. In the meantime, she had returned him to the care of his own division. But the division members all shrunk away from the duties of attending him, as if they were afraid to face the empty hulk of a man he had now become. So Ikkaku had to take care of him personally, alternating with Yumichika.

Ikkaku sighed. If only there was some way of breaking the depression. Captain Mayuri of the twelfth division had suggested showing him the corpse of Vice Captain Yachiru as a shock measure, but he had been loudly shouted down by all the others. Besides, there was no corpse. Ikkaku had men scouring the entire battlefield even now, but he was afraid that the worst had occurred. Hollows were hungry creatures.

He grimaced at the thought. That was a terrible way to end, especially for one such as her. Memories of times spent with the Vice Captain flooded his thoughts for a while. He would give almost anything to have her pop up and gnaw on his head again. She brought joy and laughter into a division filled with die-hard fanatics of war. They were crushed without her. A cold, bitter flame burned in his heart.

"Eat up, Captain," he said grimly, lifting up another spoonful. "Come back to us as fast as you can, and then let's go after those murderers."

Author's Notes: Well, that's a satisfactory introduction to the story, I think. Please bear with me if I'm slow to update from now on. I'm actually trying to finish writing the whole story out first before posting, so that there'll be less fine-tuning and adjustments to do later on if I want to change something. And since foreshadowing is especially important in this story, I have to be very careful about it. Nevertheless, thank you for all the kind reviews so far, and hope you felt something about this one too.