A/N: Ahh…it's been a while, hasn't it? D: Yet continue I must…many apologies for the late update and all.

Disclaimer: …Eh? Disclaimer? What disclaimer?? O.o

"Well! You're certainly a sight for sore eyes, aren't you?"

The sultry voice resounds strangely in the air, alien in the thickness and silence of the atmosphere.

Another voice, puzzled, responds.

"Hm? What do you mean by that?"

And the sultry one returns, warm with amusement.

"Oh, it's probably nothing but a trifle to you. However, it is quite a sight around here…"

"Aw, come on. Riddles on our first day together? I'm disappointed!"

"And there you go into a huff already. Not a very patient thing, are you?"

"I'll be patient when you don't talk in circles so much."

"Is that so? How about this, then? I'll just talk in squares, and then you can be as patient as you want, hm?"

"Oh, Haineko! That's foul play!"

"It most certainly isn't, if I do say so myself."

"Well, I think it is!"

"And I don't!"

"And I…well…oh, can you just tell me what you meant already?"

A purring laugh.

"That was rather quick. I thought you'd have fought back a bit longer than that."

"Love to rub things in, don't you?"

"I try, honey. I try."

A short silence persists, broken only by the soft whisper of drifting ash and the muffled padding of footsteps on a fine carpet of gray. And then the sultry voice rises once more.

"Your hair."

This catches Rangiku Matsumoto off guard, and she pauses for a moment, blinking in surprise.

"What?"

"Your hair, Rangiku. It's most certainly a sight for sore eyes around here."

"My…hair?"

The footsteps, having faltered once, now resume, leaving footprints in their wake, soon to vanish again between a new layer of soot. After a pause, Rangiku tosses her head, so that her strawberry-blonde curls bounce appealingly, catching what little light to seep into the slate of their surroundings and glowing softly. Then she smiles brightly at the ashen apparition pacing beside her.

"Oh, so you noticed! Wow! I didn't know that new shampoo Hinamori-chan gave me would work out so nicely! Though really, I guess that's a given - that girl always had such nice, dark hair, don't you think, Haineko?"

And at this point Haineko's ears twitched slightly, more out of amusement than anything else. It wasn't like she hadn't expected such a response, besides…

"Actually, I think you should stick to the brand you had before, Rangiku. It had a much more effective conditioner, and it goes easier on your curls. Hinamori-chan's was really more suited to Hinamori-chan - her hair is nice and straight, and probably doesn't need quite as much conditioner anyway." Said spirit stops abruptly, and Matsumoto follows suit, her wide smile now replaced by a confused frown.

"You think so?" she began, in a rather bemused matter - and then the other implications sank in somewhat. "But - hey, wait a minute! Haineko, if you didn't mean that, then why -?"

"It's not how your hair looks, honey. Simply that it is."

"…What?"

"…Not very bright either, are you?"

"Well, it's your fault for getting into those riddles again. Is it really a habit of yours?"

"Is it?"

"Haineko…"

"All right, all right, I'm getting on with it, keep your top on. All I've ever meant to say is that you're really such a bright thing…"

"Haineko, you just said that I wasn't bright. If you think that's going to get you back in my good graces…"

"Salvage the details, don't you? Honey, I'm not talking about that bright. I mean, bright as in…you know…color."

"So I'm…bright?" The way Rangiku spoke the word was rather amusing in itself, and Haineko found herself having to suppress a laugh.

"Yes, you're bright. Very bright. The brightest thing to have ever come here before now. You don't get color like that around here."

And for the first time Rangiku finally noticed the way the ashen cat at her feet was looking at her…affixing her with an unblinking gaze, silver-blue eyes glowing like lanterns against her gray pelt. Staring, as though searching for something that might disappear at any given moment.

In a way, she supposed there was due reason behind it. Thinking about it now, she could readily attest to the fact that she was probably like a splash of watercolor against the shades of this inner world of hers. Above and below, on both sides, was ash and soot, soot and ash. Everywhere. Cinders shrouded the ground in a thick gray snow, and clumps of silver powder drifted down from the sky, which was a strange, lighted gray, as if it were a blanket through which a flashlight was shining. As such, because of this, the place was not dark - but it was not light, either. Instead, an odd, muffled glow permeated the atmosphere, strangely comforting and warm. The air was still, not a breath of wind stirring, and thus the flat land that stretched out in all directions appeared to have been untouched by human feet for thousands upon thousands of years - a forgotten clearing at the foot of a weary volcano, perhaps, or the crater-less surface of the moon. And hanging delicately in the air, just out of reach, was the faintest whiff of smoke, the musty scent faintly reminding Rangiku of someplace in a faraway time, a little room filled with sleeping children curled under tattered blankets, crowding as close as they could to the warm, glowing embers of a hearth in the dead of winter.

And then there was Haineko herself - the Ash-Cat, and aptly named. She was a rather large feline - Rangiku had never seen a cat quite as large as this one - with gracefully curving legs and wide paws that didn't leave a trace of a print in the soot where she might have tread. Her body was lean and might have been skinny, but her thick pelt hid such details from view - a pelt as gray and speckled as their surroundings, so that at a distance Haineko would be almost invisible, though the fur seemed strangely loose, almost unkempt - as if it were made of ash itself. Then there was her tail, which stretched out behind her in a leisurely fashion, and her face, relatively petite, with a strangely quirked mouth that was twisted just enough to reveal a pair of sharp, white teeth. She had long whiskers, which twitched and glittered as bits of fallen soot would cling to them, and her ears were constantly active, swiveling from one point to another, as though listening to something nobody else could hear.

And then there were her eyes. The only thing on Haineko's persona that did not match the monochrome slate that seemed to colour everything else in this place. Wide, huge eyes, bright and intelligent…and dangerous. Quite dangerous. Dangerous the way only a free, untamed beast could be.

Dangerous…and…

The thought struck quite out of nowhere, really. In a very sudden burst it all came together - the vast, warm silence of this inner world, the laughing, condescending bantering. Haineko's stare.

Haineko was speaking once more, an ear swerving to address something behind even as she continued where she had left off.

"It's nice to have some company around here, you know. Not that I enjoy your bright hair as much as I let on, of course. But it does get dreadfully boring after awhile. You never talked to me properly until recently, and even then you kept forgetting half the time. I can only listen to your thoughts and whatever you're saying in the outside world. Yes, quite boring indeed…" Her voice faded to a low, musing purr. Almost absently, she lifted a paw and licked it briskly - even her tongue was almost colorless, a pale sort of pink aligning the fur in the right direction. Then, that done, she looked up again, the expression on her features rather suspicious - if a cat could look suspicious in the first place. "Rangiku? You're not talking like you should be."

"…Haineko. Are you lonely?"

The silence that followed was heavy with surprise. Haineko's tail twitched as she stared at her wielder in surprise.

"Sorry?"

Yet when Rangiku returned the gaze, the sheer intense seriousness on her features was enough to surprise Haineko even further. She had known Rangiku wasn't all bubbly laughter and sake madness, but still…

"Are you lonely?"

The question itself took root. Haineko's shoulders bristled - she scoffed.

"Lonely? What are you talking about? Why would I possibly lonely?"

"Oh, I don't know."

And just as instantly, the seriousness had completely vanished as though it had never been there, and Matsumoto was suddenly all smiles once more. She shrugged, and resumed walking. "Just a random thought, I guess. Say, why don't you show me around, hm? Looks like an interesting place you've got here…"

Haineko stared as Rangiku set off cheerfully, the hairs on her back flattening slightly. Then, after a few more moments of perplexed ogling, she slowly rose to her feet and scattered into a cloud of ash, rematerializing beside Rangiku's foot, in favor of trying to catch up via more conventional means.

"Show you around? Well, I suppose if you're interested in dunes of ash, then I guess you could look forward to seeing quite a few…"

"Ooh, dunes of ash? Like the dunes of a desert? Sounds interesting!"

"I get this rather nagging feeling that you're avoiding something, Rangiku…"

"What are you talking about? I'm just happy that we're getting along so well together!"

"…Never mind. I suppose some things are better left unasked…"

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Did I ever say it'd mean anything in the first place?"

"Ugh, riddles! You're going to make me hate them now, you know. Why do you like to use them so much when we talk, Haineko?"

"Oh, I use them around you because one day when you wrap up that ambition of yours to become a Lieutenant, you're going to get a crabby genius captain that likes to talk circles around his friends to keep them from worrying about him, of course! Why else would I torture you so? Certainly not because it annoys you so, oh no."

"My, Haineko, you have such cutting sarcasm."

"Oh, I try, honey. I try."

She knew what it was to be lonely.

It is a…hollow feel. Like you're nothing more than a shadow in a colorful world. Like you were never meant to be there. Like you didn't belong.

And Rangiku reckons that it is probably a lonely existence, being a zanpakuto spirit before your wielder has called your name. Waiting, always waiting…wondering if it would ever happen at all…and that's really quite enough stress for anyone to handle. Of this Rangiku is certain.

She knew what it was to be lonely.

But Gin had been the one that had come…the one that had saved her.

And she'd do the same for Haineko, whether she liked it or not. It was a resolution she made the moment she departed from her inner world and awoke the next morning.

With a grim sort of resolve she clipped her katana to her belt.

She resolved to never leave it anywhere too far away again.

…

And, she supposed, she probably ought to return that bottle of shampoo to Hinamori-chan around mealtime. Goodness only knew the girl probably needed it more than she ever would.

A/N: …

-sigh-

Okay. I give up. The ending feels awkward as heck, but I've changed it several times, and I'm not about to meddle with it again. Just gonna have to see how this turns out, and that's that. Harumph! :\

Heck, this entire chapter feels weird. It just…feels lacking. Almost forced. Then again, I am now trying to get back into the proper mindframe for this fic, and it's being rather rough at the moment, so I must apologize if this was less great than usual. T.T I don't really know what I think about the way Matsumoto came out in this chapter. It just felt…odd. To be honest, I never really realized just how hard it is to get down Matsumoto's personality, because it truly is quite difficult. I don't think it turned out quite right, but I can't really tell what it is I'm missing, so I'm just leaving that as it is for now. Both she and Haineko felt weird to write but…meh. I'll leave that for you people to decide. :)

Hopefully I'll be getting back into the regular updating bracket, but life's feeling fussy, so to be honest I'm not sure. We'll just have to see how this goes…

On a totally different topic, I'm finally up-to-date with the manga, and…in all honesty, I'm feeling quite terrified about where this is going.

(Those who do not want to be struck by heavy spoilers, please skip this part.)

By gosh, I'm going to pray from the bottom of my heart that nobody gets killed. Because that's really my main concern at the moment…Hitsugaya is up against Halibel, who must be at least the third or second Espada, and Matsumoto is being paired off against, like, three of Halibel's Fraccion! And then Ukitake and Shunsui are against Stark, who also might take up position of third or second…I hope with all my might that Ukitake's sickness will give him a chance to fight properly…and then there's Soifon and Omaeda, up against two obviously-strong Fraccion themselves. (And I'm actually worried about Omaeda too, to my own surprise o.O). Nail-biting is thus ensuing. Next week is bound to be nerve-wracking. X.x

(Those who have skipped the previous part may return.)

Anyways…

Thank You's!

Wisdom-jewel, D R A G O N L I L I E S, Cymru na Alethaira, Kosa Kinoshita, rldragon, Moonrise31, Volital, and hu3long2 are all incredibly generous and awesome individuals, whom I cannot thank enough for their support and time. I apologize profusely for not replying to any of you - as I've said before, life's being bossy. Heck, I'm supposed to be completeing a biography that's worth, like, forty percent of our English semester grade...and here I am...so...uh... o.o'

-glances around furtively-

Better get on with that. Hopefully I will be seeing all of you again next week. :D