A/N: And finally, we get to the good stuff! I've been looking forward to writing this one for a while now…

Disclaimer: I t'nod nwo hcealB ro gnihtyna detaler ot ti. doireP. dnA fi uoy nac daer siht - fi uoy neve derehtob ot yrt dna daer siht, yllautca - neht uoy era lla eht erom emosewa rof ti.

"So…what think you, Shunsui? Is this place not a subtle, flowing paradise in your eyes? Does not the veil of darkness taunt your senses? Does not the glowing flora capture your heart with their delicate wings of rose and jade and violet? And are not those shining stars above our heads positively glorious, spotting the navy sky like a scattering of the finest silver dust, more valuable than the purest gold lining on a noble's robe…?"

And Katen trails on, his voice sultry and mellow in the warm night air. He has one hand raised absently to the heavens, while the other pillows his head where he lies, flat on his back, a lazy smile adorning his features. On either side of him, the Flower King's countless layers of robes and cloaks and shawls fan out, sprawled wings of impressively colored cloth.

Shunsui Kyouraku chuckles where he lays beside the first half of his zanpakuto spirit, at leisure himself, content to enjoy the incessant poetry that slowly winds its way through the grass, the trees, the flowers, and the darkness, memorizing a few lines here and there for future use or reference. Peering to the side, he finds that he could spend hours tracing the thousands of floral designs and intricate patterns woven into the threads of the clothing of the man beside him - garments truly fit for a king. He finds already that he rather likes this person, this laid-back young man with his drawl grin and lazy countenance.

"Wearying of his rambling already, are you?"

And then there was the other half of his zanpakuto, the one he was never quite sure of…

Shunsui turned his head slightly to find another figure towering beside him, a dark form blotting out the stars in that area. However, he meets the contemptuous gaze of the Demon King evenly, only smiling a little wider for it.

Katen, too, turns at the sound of the newcomer, his own dulcet tones fading in mid-sentence as he takes stock of the situation…and smiles, even more brightly than Shunsui.

"Ah, Kyokotsu, you came back at last!" Genuine happiness colors his words brightly. "I was beginning to worry, dear brother. Forgive me, but I had thought, for the very most briefest of moments, that perhaps you would never arrive to meet our Lord, who has found us at last, after much struggle and hardship befitting of a warring warrior. My content is fulfilled, now that you have returned once more." He waves slightly. "Come, sit down with us, and gaze at this wonderful sky that is to be ours equally. Come, and let us talk, as zanpakuto and wielder have done afore us for many a countless generation."

The towering shadows shifts, and Shunsui is quick to notice how Kyokotsu's expression remains icy, unmoving.

"And, as usual, you go about spouting your flowery nonsense," he glowers in retort. His eyes are black, flinty. "This is not the time for poetry, Katen. This is a time for testing strengths, for pacts." He shifts his gaze to Shunsui once more. "…I will stay here. But I will not talk to you," he adds, rather venomously. And then his voice takes on an odd pitch, almost shrill, his mouth almost bending in a sneer. "You are no Lord of mine! I bow to no one. I am the Demon King, and no law will harness me. You would do well to remember that."

And with that, Kyokotsu turns away with a ripple of the cloak that shrouds him, and he stalks off, stopping a few yards away and simply standing there, immobile, arms clearly folded. Beside Shunsui, Katen sighs, a voice of long-suffering.

"Dear brother, you wound me, that you should utter such words of disrespect to our Guidance," he laments, expression utterly crestfallen. "I fear you must forgive him, Shunsui," he adds apologetically, both arms falling to his sides at last. There is a thick rustle of clothing with that simple movement. "Kyokotsu is not one of kindness, nor compassion. His rage is terrible, and there are times that I wonder for his sanity, if you would permit me to speak honestly. Yet he is my brother, and the blade in your left hand, half of our fighting strength. I fear you will have to toil all the longer and harder to earn a respect of some sort from he."

"And you respect me already?" Shunsui inquires, somberly. He is not looking at Katen any longer, but his head is tilted instead in the other direction, surveying the tall, dark form to the side.

"But of course," Katen replies, graciously. "I can see it clearly, the power you hold. You will Guide us well. But I alone cannot carry out your wishes. We need Kyokotsu as well, for my power is not in the battle, in the cutting, but in the thought, the stratagem, as you must understand."

"I see…"

Shunsui remains silent as Katen then sighs lightly and turns the one-sided conversation to other things, and the poetry weaves into being again, permeating all that surround them. But this time Shunsui pays little attention as his thoughts roam to other things.

He had come here to learn things, deliberately napping in the middle of class in the process. Kidou control, the one hour he didn't have Jyuu-chan sitting beside him to make sure he didn't slack off. Though, bless the man, he'd probably work himself into a fit after he'd caught word of what he was doing now. But Shunsui didn't mind. The time would be well-spent, as he would explain to his friend later on.

Jyushiro had already made contact with his zanpakuto, Shunsui knew. He was one of the few people to be told of the nature of Ukitake's blades - "They are both connected, for better or worse, Shun. Even in my inner world, Sougyo no Kotowari remains as one, despite being of two separate entities." The amazement had been clear in Jyuu-chan's voice as he had said that. "They are bound by a red line strung with charms, a red line that will never break."

But it was not the same here, Shunsui thought to himself. No, here, Katen and Kyokotsu were both completely separated, and polar opposites as well, if the display he'd just witnessed was something to indicate the situation.

Katen was the bright, amiable one, he mused. The Flower King, clad in all the colors of the rainbow, lazy and kind, a person who spoke only words of poetry and prose. Kyokotsu, however, was the dark, icy one, one who spoke little and scathingly, the solitary individual of terrible strength that he gave to few, if any. The cloak that shrouded him was about as black as Katen's was bright, and his skin was pale, face hard, completely uncaring. The Demon King, a man of darkness.

Yet both Katen and Kyokotsu were alike in so many ways, as well. Physically, they were identical as twins in every aspect - they both had black eyes, strikingly handsome faces, and they were both tall, a few inches above Shunsui's own head. Both were strangely passionate, in one way or another, and each one seemed to emit their own brand of power. Strong individually, and possibly terrifying together, if they could ever bond that way.

His inner world seemed to reflect both such qualities, looking around now. This place was a woodland of sorts, though the trees were a good distance apart from each other, leaving other plants ample space to grow and thrive. A carpet of grass predominantly covered the earth, though in scatters and clusters flowers grew, everywhere. Flowers of every possible sort, blooming on vines or standing solitary on their own stems by themselves. And the blossoms practically glowed with an odd inner light that illuminated the ever-constant midnight that reigned in the sky. There was no moon above their heads, only the vast, starry expanse, sometimes fainter, sometimes brighter, always there. Night…which was probably an influence of Kyokotsu, as much as Katen's was the glowing flowers.

Shunsui turned his fleeting gaze back to the said heavens, deciding to stop fretting and instead start enjoying this peaceful relaxation while it lasted. Any moment now, he was sure, either the sensei or one of his classmates would be shaking him roughly by the shoulder, with class over and an impatient and disapproving Ukitake hovering at the doorway. The stars really were quite lovely, as Katen was currently illustrating.

At some point or another, Kyokotsu drifted back, haughty as ever, though a cold sort of curiosity alight in his eyes. He sits down stiffly somewhere beside Shunsui's head, just out of his line of vision, and Katen greets him brightly once more.

"Ah, Kyokotsu, I knew you'd have a change of heart! Your moods shift like raging tides of sun and storm, really. It intrigues me to no end -"

"I don't need a heralding every time I come near you," Kyokotsu snaps, before turning back to Shunsui. Katen looking not at all put-out, only smiles wider and sits upright, folding his hands neatly.

"But surely you wish to speak with our Lord at last, dear brother?"

"…No."

What seems to be genuine surprise lights Katen's features. "Is that truly so? But why, then? Why do you sit so purposefully beside our Lord, after your long defiance, with such a serious expression adorning your features -"

"Katen."

"Hm?"

"Shut up."

"But -"

"Shut up."

"I..."

You're not going to be able to hurt anything with that fruitcake of a brother as your only line of defense.

Katen's broken voice fades into the background. Hardly surprising, really. Shunsui knew Kyokotsu probably didn't like talking verbally anyway.

You think so? he replied, albeit silently.

I know so.

And…?

…You really are the Lord, then?

You sound awfully disappointed about it.

I bow to no one.

Obviously.

Yes. But if you end up dying, we go down the drain too. And I don't intend to die anytime soon.

Unsurprisingly.

Do you think you're strong, then? Do you think you're worthy of dictating the both of us?

Hardly. I prefer to think of it more as a…friendship thing, ne?

…You talk like Katen.

Perhaps. But I'll probably end up fighting like you, or am I wrong?

Yes. Contempt again. You have no idea how to really fight.

Yet.

…Yet.

Maybe you could teach me?

I'm a King, not a sensei.

Doesn't make much of a difference to me.

I don't stoop down to low levels.

Ah, but I thought we were talking as equals here.

I never said you were an equal.

You never said I wasn't.

…I don't lie.

Meaning…?

I don't know what you are. To make a decision now would be lying.

…So I'm guessing that training session is still up in the air?

Maybe.

Abruptly, Kyokotsu rises to his feet, turns, and walks away, this time for sure, disappearing into the darkness.

And Shunsui feels that some progress has been made.

As such, after he is rather unceremoniously awakened at the end of class by an irate sensei and met by a frowning Ukitake, Shunsui Kyouraku spends the rest of his day with a wide smile on his face, a smile that has Ukitake asking him what evil prank he has up his sleeve this time around.

He did have a prank in the making, then again, involving the rather lethal concoction of a substance just recently invented in the living world called 'glue', and the chair of one Shigekuni-Genryuusai Yamamoto - who would probably hunt him down and attempt to incinerate him alive for the deed once he managed to…detach himself…from the sticky surprise and inevitably tracked down the reiatsu signature.

But, apart from that, Shunsui could also hear two voices distinctly clearer in the back of his mind, Katen's dulcet tones drawling incessant poetry, and Kyokotsu's occasional snarl or snap of irritation in retort.

Though, through the duration of the day, he realized that he had in fact been hearing those voices all along in his subconscious…which perhaps explained his honeyed tongue with women and his cravings for sake at the oddest of times. For sake, as he discovered that night, helped to in fact dampen the voices somewhat, when the arguing grew rather unbearable.

A/N: Hmmmmm…rather like with Ukitake, I feel that I've botched the delivery yet again. X.x This just felt…so confusing…but the last one did too…maybe I should read it over once or twice.

-reads over once or twice-

Ahh, I give up. I don't know why I'm so bothered about this one, but I hope it's alright. I really wanted to do Shunsui justice…which might explain my anxiety somewhat…but I'll leave that to you reviewers to decide. :) Apart from this inexplicable discontentment, I think it turned out okay, but by gosh it was hard to characterize Katen and Kyokotsu. Katen's flowery speech was both fun and difficult to write, and as to Kyokotsu…well, I know the general idea is that he'd supposed to be 'crazy', as the second part of the name Katen Kyokotsu ought to suggest, but…I just couldn't do it. Call me weird, but I find writing insane characters terribly difficult if not downright impossible. D: So I had to settle with haughty and cold instead…

All the same, it just feels good to be writing about Shunsui's at last. I've been entertaining the urge to submit this thing ever since Ukitake's chapter, but as I've been wanting to keep the order of things as random as possible, I've had to wait. But now it officially exists! :D Sooooo…criticism? Anything? I'm dying to know…

Aaaand…I thank D R A G O N L I L I E S, kimi108909, Moonrise31, wisdom-jewel, VioTanequil, and, last but not least, hu3long2, for your reviews! You guys are just…awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. 8D