"I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls."

Sting: 'A Thousand Years'

The fourth division clinic was empty when he shouldered the doors open. He called out into the dark halls, his voice sounding louder to his own ears than he had expected. His grip on the small captain in his arms tightened. He could feel Toshiro's fever through his soaked shihakusho, just as easily as he could feel his own thoughts racing through his head.

"Hello!" he called out through the darkness. No lights stirred along the halls, the dampened silence hanging in the air like smog. "Please!" he yelled louder. "Someone, I need help!" His voice cracked, and he burst into a run, galloping down the hallways in hopes of locating someone. Hanataro, Lieutenant Isane, Captain Unohana, anyone. He would have cut down an army of hollows and faced down Aizen without question if only fate could guarantee his finding of one, singular person that would help him.

When a light came on, he just almost wept with relief. And as he skittered towards the door, Captain Unohana herself stepped out. She was not dressed in her captain's uniform. He couldn't blame her; it was an ungodly hour of the night. And even captains, save for perhaps Toshiro, did have the habit of sleeping at some point. He had been amazed by Toshiro being awake when he arrived, but now there was at least an explanation as to why. An explanation that he was not fond of in the least, but that was beyond his reach to change.

For now.

"Ichigo Kurosaki?" the female captain asked, her brows raised in mild confusion. "What brings you to the Soul Society so suddenly?" She shook her head, stepping out into the hall to greet him properly. She still smiled softly, as she always seemed to. "I ask this not because I am unhappy to see you, but it is merely a strange occurrence for you to visit the 4th Division unless gravely injured."

She paused when her eyes grazed over the damp bundle in his arms. Admittedly, Toshiro didn't much look like himself at the moment. With his hair bogged down by water, and his small body almost entirely hidden by the too-large folds of his captain's cloak and shihakusho, he looked more to be a pile of sodden laundry than the spritely captain he normally was.

The face of the 4th Squad Captain became grave faster than he comprehended. "Ichigo, why are you carrying a captain's haori?" she queried, and he realized that she had not yet realized that it was Toshiro he was carrying. And with another startling jolt, Ichigo realized that even his blunted senses could find no trace of the other man's spiritual pressure.

"It's not just the cloak," he said, adjusting the position of his arm so the face of the 10th Squad Captain would be visible to his fellow captain. "It's Toshiro," he said, and he watched as Unohana's entire visage stiffened. "Captain Unohana, please… I-"

The young man didn't even have the opportunity to finish his sentence before the female captain has all but scooped Toshiro out of his arms. "Kurosaki," she said, looking back at him over her shoulder with a look that made him understand why she had a reputation, "I will be needing answers when I have finished assessing Captain Hitsugaya's condition. Until then I would ask you to wait outside the room we will be occupying. It is highly important that this situation be contained, and that can only be accomplished with a protected barrier. Do you understand?"

He nodded numbly, following after her as she walked swiftly through the halls. She left the lights of the building off, and he could only assume that she could afford to do so because she knew the building well enough to maneuver it without them. But then, he also supposed that the more lights went on, the more attention would be drawn to the division building. And the more attention was drawn, the more panic would spread as news leaked out.

He stumbled several times, but kept his curses for his stubbed toes tied to his tongue. The decision was made in the best interest for their entire party, so any complaints would not be coming from him.

When Captain Unohana turned and closed one of the doors behind her, Ichigo stopped in his tracks. The darkness closed in around him like a rope being knotted into a noose, and the thundering breath in his chest stilled. There was no sound from the other side of the door, and he stood stiffly in the hallway. Each groan of a beam, every drip of water on the roof caught the attention of his senses, and his hands fidgeted on Zangetsu's hilt. There had been tension radiating from Unohana, and now he had his own tension to grapple with in the dark.

Thoughts scrambled through his head, quantifying to his inquiring mind why exactly the situation distressed him so much. Initially, it had been the sheer terror of the dream that had driven him into action. And now that the panic of the vision had faded, there was a new uneasiness that remained.

He'd never actually met Toshiro for a long time. He'd been accepted as a Substitute long before he and the snowy captain actually met face to face. He'd heard about him from Renji when he'd had the thought to ask. He'd heard the message that Lieutenant Isane had relayed over the air waves that fateful day. But at the time he'd been too preoccupied with saving Rukia and his own skin that he hadn't given the message much thought. It wasn't until afterwards that he realized that the Soul Society had almost lost another one of their Captains. And when he found out that Toshiro was but a child, he was more than stunned.

His interest had progressed from there, but as with Rukia and Renji, the sheer distance between the Soul Society and the World of the Living prevented him from acting on it all very much. He would always ask about the various captains whenever Rukia or Renji were around, which encompassed his interest in Toshiro smoothly enough that it wouldn't be noticed. And, in all reality, there was little to mask other than interest. But as the battles wore on, and Toshiro persisted to display loyalty to Ichigo's intentions, the view began to shift.

There began to appear a geniality that he'd never displayed to others nearly as quickly as he had to Toshiro. There was something about the young captain that always made him seem… reliable. From the very start, there was a steadfast hardiness that Ichigo came to respect, and a youthful tang that he also came to enjoy teasing. He became a satellite friend, rather than an acquaintance. And slowly the satellite landed on his world, planted his feet, and rocked it to the core.

It was about that time that the incident with the Kingdom Treasure Stamp occurred, and the view he had of his relationship with the young captain was turned completely on its head. Nothing regarding the Soul Society had been the same since, and Ichigo didn't think it ever would be. The sheer knowledge that he and Toshiro had experienced the same breed of pain, that he had been able to chip even a small hole through the deeping wall of ice that was the young man's emotional defenses was a victory indeed.

The high and mighty Captain of the 10th Squad, Toshiro Hitsugaya, in the end, had accepted his help. And Ichigo of all people knew how humbling it was to have to accept the aid of another, but never once did he ever hear Toshiro lament this. Ichigo had successfully made the young man understand a concept that they now shared as equals: the overcoming of pain through trust in others.

He didn't realize he'd sat down until the tip of his zanpakuto hit the door. He startled himself, then settled himself as the rain droned on outside the world of his thoughts. Yes, that was why the distress had overcome his fraudulent senses. That was why he was on the verge of pulling his fiery hair out. All of the progress he'd made, and the friendship he'd earned by luck, was on the verge of crumbling. And though he'd suffered loss in the past, and knew full well that the future did not come without it, he was not willing to deal with such a crushing blow now.

"You look mighty stressed, Mr. Kurosaki."

Ichigo completely missed the opportunity to resist jumping out of his skin. Instead, he jumped nearly a foot in the air from where he had been sitting, tumbling over his arms, legs, and zanpakuto in his probably rather comical surprise. Once his rather painful tumble had fretfully wound to a stop, he looked up from the floor, the first thing meeting his eyes a large splash of rather tacky pink in the shadows of the hallway.

"Captain Kyoraku," he muttered out dumbly. The man's wily lips turned up into a grin as he offered a helping hand down to the teenager. Ichigo thankfully took it, rising and rubbing his shoulder where Zangetsu's handle had jabbed him. "What are you doing here?" he asked before realizing the meaning of his own question. He had asked out of habit, but this time there was actually good reason. For the drunkard companion of Captain Ukitake to be anywhere that wasn't in bed stone-faced drunk was unusual, especially this late in the night.

"Oh come now, Mr. Kurosaki. Can't an old man visit his friends when they come to town?" The older man's smile was barely visible under the shadow of his hat, but Ichigo could see the faintest twinges of his pulling at his lips.

"Were it at any time other than the present, I would say yes." Ichigo looked at the man, his own expression hardening. He looked down at the floor, away from the other man as one of his hands strayed to run through his still soaked hair. "But that's not the case." His yes returned to the other man, then. And from the lack of pull on the older captain's lips, Ichigo could tell he was no longer on the verge of smiling. "And I think you and I both know that."

"You're smarter than people give you credit for, Mr. Kurosaki." The captain folded his arms into the sleeves of his pink kimono, letting out a short sigh.

"Thank you, Captain Kyoraku. But my question still stands."

The brunette captain frowned a little bit, as if displeased by his own lack of subtlety. "I could ask you the same question, Mr. Kurosaki. We don't see you very often, and I mean no insult when I say that whenever we see you, it's rarely when conditions are good."

Ichigo could not deny that statement. "I'll tell you if you tell me," he said, trying to wheedle the captain out of talking in circles. He didn't have the wits, wiles, or patience at that point to try and verbally joust with the man. And he gathered that in the end, he probably would have lost to the man's superior resourcefulness.

"Well then, Mr. Kurosaki, let's indulge each other, shall we?" he said, obviously marginally pleased with the accord. "But let's not repeat what we both already know, eh? I already know that Captain Unohana is in the room next to us, attempting to save whatever is left of Captain Hitsugaya. What I want to know, Mr. Kurosaki, is why."

Ichigo leaned back against the wall, slowly sliding down into a sitting position as the haze of chaos again descended on his mind. Why did he have to keep reliving this? How many times would he have to repeat what he'd seen? The likelihood that he would have to repeat it more times than he would have liked to seemed prevalent, so he let out a stiff sigh. He heard the fluttering of Captain Kyoraku's many robes as the other man sat down also.

"Because something's killing him," Ichigo said, the deadpan in his voice quivering with the emotion he was still trying to drown. He buried his head in his hands, feeling the silent surprise roll off the other man in waves. "I had a dream…" He paused. "No. It was a nightmare. I dragged Rukia out of bed to take me to the Soul Society, just to make sure it wasn't true. But when I got here…"

"It was not as I expected, Mr. Kurosaki. " For the second time that night, Ichigo failed to resist the urge to jump out of his skin. However, on this round his fumble was far less drastic, and probably far less comical to the audience at hand. But when his attention, far quicker recovered, returned to the lady captain, he was not pleased at the sight of the unhappy line that was her lips. "I would ask that you and Captain Kyoraku please follow me. There are some questions I need to ask of you, Ichigo, and some answers that I may need help finding with Captain Kyoraku."

The two men followed after her silently, and the door slid shut behind the two of them as they entered. Ichigo resisted the urge to let his eyes wander the way they wanted to, to resist the heartache that was teasing at the corners of his vision. In the end his efforts failed, and his auburn eyes glanced towards the snowy captain.

He instantly regretted it.

The young captain lay across the bed, covered up to his chest by a ghostly white sheet. Were his skin not flushed with fever, it probably would have been hard to tell the difference between them. His breath was barely present, save for the minute movement of the sheets as his small chest rose and fell in shallow pants. Even after that spare second, he felt sick to himself, and quickly looked away. He knew if he stared longer, all of his control would strip away, and reckless abandon would take over.

And, having learned this from Toshiro himself, reckless abandon may be heartfelt, but never productive against an enemy who had no heart.

"Mr. Kurosaki, I might ask how exactly you came to know about Captain Hitsugaya's condition," the woman in front of him asked, and he paused before answering. He had to gather some sort of thought together that could justly explain what he had seen. What he had felt. When no poetry came, he simply began.

"I had a dream, Captain Unohana," he said truthfully, and she looked at him with obvious surprise in her eyes. He could tell there was some manner of problem with his answer, and he chose to interject with his own logic before she could supplant him. "But before I explain, you should know something. When the incident with Kusaka came about, I came into contact with a resonance from his Hyorinmaru. I have had contact with the memories of that sword, and you should know that from that experience, what I am about to say is wholly truth."

That said, the two adults were successfully silent, much to his intent. "I had a dream , in which I saw Toshiro's inner world burning." He could sense that the statement rocked the two captains, far more than he himself expected or understood. "I knew it to be true, because as I mentioned before, I've seen it from the resonance. I woke Rukia up immediately, and she and I arrived in the Soul Society very shortly after I awoke. I failed to realize that the times were different through the Dongai Precepice World, and we arrived late in the night when in the World of the Living it had barely been morning. I went to Captain Hitsugaya's office upon arrival."

"Did you find him as he is now?" Captain Kyoraku asked as Captain Unohana's gaze focused on the young captain in question.

Ichigo shook his head, again seeming to surprise the captains. "No. He was awake when I arrived, working on some manner of paperwork. I can only assume that's what captains do, though not at that time of night by usual standards."

"At that time, Mr. Kurosaki, were Captain Hitsugaya's eyes a different color?" Captain Unohana asked, still not paying full attention to his direction entirely. All of his words were reaching her, but her medical mind was obviously at work.

He nodded, Captain Kyoraku looking at both of them in surprise. "A different color? You can't be serious."

Ichigo looked to the Squad 8 Captain. "Hyorinmaru explained to my why. Captain Unohana, from what he's said, there's something that's invaded his inner world. When he felt the absence of Toshiro's soul and went reaching out to find it, something managed to enter and push him out and into Toshiro's body. That's why his eyes are a different color. But there's something that's worrying me. Just before we left there were flecks of gray starting to appear. Do you know what might have caused this?"

"Ichigo, you must understand that it is impossible to separate a soul reaper's soul from their body. To begin with they are but souls, so there is no way that what you say can be the truth," the female captain said, though she seemed unsatisfied with that statement even as she said it herself.

He heard a sigh and looked over to Captain Kyoraku, who was scratching at the side of his face with a rather unhappy expression. "Unless," he said slowly, drawing both of their attention over to him, "there's some concept here we're not grasping."

They both waited for his answer with fear.

"What you say of the spiritual body may be true as far as we are aware of, but think for a moment. Soul Reapers bleed, yet retain no scars to their spiritual pressure or capacity for power. Thus there must be some other manner of dimension within us. And once destroyed, our individual minds and memories separate from a body and return to the cycle of rebirth, so there has to be some manner of release between the two. So, from that assumption, we can guess that there are three parts to a Soul Reaper: the body, the individual mind, and the spiritual pressure, which originates from the contract with the zanpakuto." Ichigo could feel where this was going, but could not fathom to what end someone would want to separate the three parts, if only to gain access to one.

"But two of those three components never transfer through the cycle of rebirth," Kyoraku continued, his frown deepening. "The body and the spiritual pressure are never recycled. Only the individual mind, with all of its memories and feelings, is strong enough to endure the cycle of rebirth."

Silence descended across the room, and Ichigo looked over to the where the small captain lay, knowing that the eyes of the others were with him.

"Which means that whoever did this is trying to find a way to permanently remove souls from the cycle of rebirth."

It makes me laugh that I've chosen to update this story while it has 13 reviews. That seems a rather ominous omen, don't you think? OH THE IRONY! In any case, this chapter probably wouldn't have been written for a long time had I not realized how long it had been since I last updated. And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be with the help of the Diamond Dust Rebellion soundtrack. Woot for muse-fed music. I also promised xTKx that I would update this fic this week, so I thought that it would be best to hold true to my promises. And low and behold, here it is! There are roughly going to be six more chapters in this fic, but they are going to be much, MUCH longer than the first three. I've just been choosing to be evil and leave you poor people with cliffhangers all over the place. Haha on you. There should be another thing you should note about this fic: though it is an IchiHitsu fic it is not going to contain any meaningless sex scenes. Nor will it include any true romance whatsoever until the last chapter, because unlike most writers I actually enjoy building the relationship between the characters before I have them snogging on public benches. Not that I would have them snogging on public benches anyway, but you get the idea. Next up in news is the updated pairing vote for fic number two in this series. Please give me input, because you guys will be the one deciding!

Shuuhei-Byakuya: 1

Shuuhei-Renji: 1

Shuuhei-Kensei: 1

Shuuhei-Ikkaku: 0

8-90s love,

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