I didn't want to see Zaera hurt himself. I really didn't. That's why I was left with the alternative I had then: To let Zaera hurt me instead. Looking back now, I think that was kind of a stupid, and yet fabulous, idea, because Zaera wouldn't be hurt, and it would be easier on both of us. Of course, not saying that I really liked being hurt, but, you know. I guess there are just some things you do to protect people you care about. I don't say 'love', because I don't really believe that I was IN LOVE with Zaera. I loved him, but I wasn't IN LOVE with him. At least, not the way he was with me.

That's how it happened. That's how my mask became a broken helmet. It was even more broken than it had been before. And still, I let Zaera continue this madness. Because...well, what was I supposed to do? Stand back and watch my younger brother abuse himself to death?

He used to call those times, the times he came back from someplace or other with bloodlust in his eyes, he called them "Yukidaruka." Or, literally, "snow breaking," because my skin was supposedly 'almost as white as snow', and it often, no, let me rephrase that, ALWAYS broke during these sessions. I didn't know them as anything but pain. Of course, in a way, I suppose I accepted it as more than just pain, I think I thought of it as "pain for a purpose." Because, really, I didn't want Zaera to go around terrorizing his organs and stuff. He was my younger brother. What was I supposed to do?

Yukidaruka was often inflicted on me twice a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But most often twice a week. There were times when Zaera just couldn't control his anger about something or other (usually because other members of the Espada were being dumbasses or making stupid remarks or something like that) and so he took it out on me. I let him. Maybe I should have stopped him. But at that point, hell, as long as he didn't crush his kidneys or something, I could take all the pain he could give me.

And then there were the times when Zaera just wanted to see me bleed. I don't understand what it was about my blood, but Zaera liked watching it, watching it as it ran in trickles down my heaving, aching body; he liked to reach out, running his fingers delicately along my chest, gathering up some blood on the pads of his fingers, and then bring it to his mouth and taste it. I think that's how Fornicaras was born; through my blood.

It was different, every single time. At least, the methods of torture were. There were so many different ways, that it all blends together now. But there were a few that stood out to me, even through that bloody haze of pain:

White Torture: It was heck of easy shit to complete White Torture in Las Noches, because everything was white. Zaera would leave me alone, strapped down to an examination table, with white everything all around me, where the only color was my skin and hair. And that was it. He would leave me there for excruciating periods of time in which I would start to hallucinate and dream up insane things that weren't actually there. Things that made me scream. And only when I had been scared out of my wits and slurring words together so fast that I wasn't coherent, only then would he let me go.

Shots/Medical Shit: I could take the shots. It was what was IN the shots that I couldn't handle. There were drugs in them; drugs that made me hallucinate, that made me see things that weren't really there, that made me feel as though I was flying high on a sense of pain, or, in other words, made me feel like I was a hardcore masochist. Which I really wasn't. And am not. Although I won't deny that Zaera and I seemed to have a very sadomasochistic relationship...

Chinese Water Torture: This shit actually works. It's freaky, but it does. It didn't "hurt," persay, but it was mental torture to the extreme. Basically, I would be strapped to an examining table, and water would be dripped onto my forehead, one drop at a time. It was infuriating. I could see each drop coming, and...I don't know what it was exactly about that premonition, but I knew exactly where and when every drop would hit, and what it would make me think. Those teensy drops of water reduced me to a blubbering mess on an examining table, because they awakened bad memories and created new ones for me. I really don't know why.

But there was one thing that never varied after each Yukidaruka. Zaera would always make sure to apologize after each of these sessions.

"Aniki," he whispered one day. I was almost unconscious at that point due to the amount of blood I had lost, and I was having trouble focusing on his words. "Aniki."
"Wha'sup?" I mumbled, slurring my words.
"I'm sorry," he breathed.
"S'okay," I slurred back. And before I passed out, I felt his gloved hands picking me up and moving me somewhere else. Like an affectionate lover caring for their spouse.

I didn't care for pain. I really didn't. I only did it so that Zaera wouldn't hurt himself, so that he'd have someone else to hurt, someone who wasn't exactly valuable in the Army.

Grimmjow and the other Fraccion started noticing too.

"Hey, kid, what's with that huge ass scar on ya?" Grimmjow asked one day, while we were training.
"Huh?"
"The one on your back, dumbass. What's up with it?"

There had been a huge scar on my back, from the Yukidaruka I was still recovering from, the one I had just endured two days previously. But I smiled at him, smiled at the other Fraccion, and said, "Oh, it's nothing."

But Grimmjow knew I was lying. Like I said, I'm shit at lying. So what does the guy do? He goes up and pokes it. And God. One poke. That was all it took.

Before I knew it, I was on my hands and knees on the ground, pebbles digging into the palms of my hands, and dry heaving. I say dry heaving because there was nothing in my stomach to throw up. But that single poke that Grimmjow gave me, I don't know, maybe the scar was so sensitive and so painful then that I couldn't have done anything else. But it took everything out of me.

"Hey, kid, that scar sure ain't nothing, then, if you're like this." For the first time in his life, Grimmjow actually seemed concerned.
"Yeah, you should take care of it." That was D-Roy. Master of the Obvious with a pillow on his head, right there.
"Yeah," I said. "Don't worry, I will."

I started to come up with a Yukidaruka of my own, for Zaera. Maybe I shouldn't have. But at this point, there are too many maybes in what I did, that I guess I'm glad that I did what I did. It sure as hell got me out of a lot of suffering...

My Yukidaruka's only goal was to get me killed. While Zaera watched through those little bacteria things.

And it worked. Maybe it worked a little too well...because shortly after I died, shortly after the Winter War begun, Zaera was killed as well. And I hadn't intended for that to happen.

Then again, maybe he died on purpose, as if to say, "Ha! I'm not that stupid!"

The last few months of Zaera's life were actually rather interesting, come to think of it. Surveying from the dead, it's not hard to see his motives. But sometimes, sometimes...they're so complicated, so twisted, and so wrong, that it's often hard to know what he's getting at.

And yet...I can't help but wonder if I should have apologized after completing my Yukidaruka....