Hey Interwebbers!

Here is the next part. I hesitate to call them chapters, but I suppose that's what they are. It starts off with some pain, but it's not too bad. Enjoy.

The world was dark. Hanataro couldn't see a thing in the black. Thick nothing was all there was. Nothing but pain. His body ached, sore from the beating he had taken, and as he remembered it, it became real again. He couldn't see them, the dark was so absolute, but he could hear them, and by kami could he feel them. He could feel the hotness of their breath on his skin, the rough, forceful grabs from their hands in his hair. He could feel them pulling his clothes off, could feel as they touched and groped him, his neck, his arms, his chest, waist, thighs… Red searing pain shot through him as he felt a stabbing heat all over and screamed in agony. The sharp tear of fresh wounds being wrought once again inside his body was as real as it had been then and as he relived the memory, the pain became worse. He pleaded, begged, as he had done that night, but they would not stop, would not end it, and so he cried and waited die, or to once again be saved.

Memory and reality mixed to become the semi-dark of night in bed and the pain faded to the dull ache it had been by the afternoon. Hana felt the tears streaming down his cheeks, but ignored them and the sobbing coming from his own gasping breaths. His confused mind refused to calm, and his pulse was rapid. He closed his eyes, not having recognized where he was, and found that he was clutching desperately to a pair of strong but gentle arms which were wrapped around his slender frame. A soft, familiar voice in his ear spoke reassuring words as he was rocked gently. It was the voice from that night; the one with the sword. He focused on the voice and the safety he felt within these arms and calmed himself enough to let go his death grip. He turned on the bed to see the owner of the voice and was greeted by a sleepy-looking Ikkaku. Of course, he thought, Ikkaku had saved him. The man simply smiled at Hanataro, and lay back down to sleep, pulling the other in close.

"There now; Yer safe, I promise. Ain't no one gonna get ya while I'm here. Go back to sleep now." Hana stiffened at first - this was Ikkaku Madarame after all. He had never thought of the man as being a comforting presence. In fact, he had always seemed quite the opposite. Still, Hanataro thought, the man had saved him and had seemed sincere earlier. And as far as protection went, at least he could count on being safe for as long as Ikkaku decided he should be. He would just have to be careful not to make him angry. With that thought in mind, Hana relaxed a bit and as the strong man held him close, the gentle rhythm of his breathing lulled the healer off to sleep.

As Hanataro stilled, the bigger man sighed. When he had come back that afternoon from beating his subordinates further, Hana had been passed out again and had more or less stayed that way until nightfall. Then, the kid had started to moan in his sleep, and then had sat bolt upright, still asleep, but screaming. There had been no waking him either. Ikkaku had climbed in with him to comfort him. He was obviously dreaming about what had happened, and he seemed tortured by the very memory. The third seat made a mental note to run some extra 'training' for those fuckers again tomorrow, and try to convince Hanataro to charge them.

When the healer woke again, it took a moment before he remembered what had happened the night before, and wondered for a moment if it had just been a dream. Then he rolled over in the bed and came nose to nose with a slightly snoring bald man and realized it had, in fact, been real. For a few minutes he lay there, wondering at how the brute he had known could be so calming a presence on his tormented mind when he was the leader of the very men responsible for his pain. Well, maybe not leader, but close enough. Everyone knew that Captain Zaraki only cared about fighting and couldn't care less about actually running his squad, and Lieutenant Yachiru only cared about candy. That left the third seat more or less running the show. He trained the new recruits as well as ran drills with the entire squad, Hanataro knew. Their training schedule was posted in the fourth division so they knew which dojos were in use when for cleaning purposes. They were always signed off by Madarame. He could only imagine what else the man was left in charge of. The ins and outs of running a combat-division were not his specialty.

The thought led to another in the healer's mind, and he sat up, trying to leave the bed as gently as possible, so as to not wake the sleeping bear beside him. He had gotten one foot on the floor and was slowly trying to add the second when he was stopped dead in his tracks.

"Where you goin, eh?" The sleepily mumbled sentence might as well have been a roar of ferocity for the effect it had. Hanataro immediately fell off the bed entirely, his body shaking with fear of having angered the muscular third seat by trying to sneak away. He then winced in pain from having landed firmly on his still-sore bottom, and the over-all effect was for him to more or less crumple to the ground upon hearing the words, into a shivering pain-ridden mess. The slight man tried to answer, but when he did the only sound that escaped him was a small sob. Ikkaku was out of bed within an instant of this. He picked up the other and lay him back down where he, himself had been only a moment before.

"Don't be doin that," Ikkaku said, his voice softer than Hana would have thought possible, "You'll hurt yourself more'n you are already." A hand reached up and gently ruffled the other's hair before the man stood to full height and stretched his arms a bit.

"If ya want somethin', let me know. Ya still need your rest, kid." Ikkaku walked over a bit to where another blanket lay spread on a few of the cushions that had been around the table, and sat down heavily on that. He yawned and rubbed his face a bit as Hanataro stared in silence with a dissipating but still present fear.

"I, uh," The smaller man stumbled on his words, finally forcing them out as his sense of duty outdid his sense of fear. "I need to go to work, Madarame-san." He had already been missing entirely yesterday, and his captain and lieutenant would be turning the seretai upside-down looking for him if he didn't turn up.

"Don't worry 'bout that," the other shrugged, "I sent Yumi to explain to your captain yesterday how we would be doin some 'intensive training' the next few days and how I ran into you and you volunteered to stick around here so I'm not constantly running my guys back to the fourth. I'd have gone myself, but your captain hates me, and is only kida wary of Yumi. O'course I think everyone is a little wary of Yumi." He ended with a small smile on his lips at the mention of the fifth seat, who was known to be very close to the fighter, and Hanataro suddenly remembered the healing that had been administered to his wounds. He wondered if the beauty could have been the one who had done it.

"So don't worry too much about work," Ikkaku went on, "I can make intensive training drag on for quite a few days." The smaller of the two was surprised. The other had given him a good excuse. The only one who would know it wasn't true would be Ayasagawa-san, and he was such good friends with the third seat, he was unlikely to tell anyone. Hanataro's shame would be kept silent, and even if the other man was only covering for his division's crime, Hanataro was glad.

"Th-thank you, Madarame-san." He didn't look up at the man as he spoke, but felt the other's eyes on him.

"Ya, well, I figured you wouldn't be too keen on lettin' the world know what happened. None o' their damn business anyways." He rubbed a hand over his hairless scalp. "And it's Ikkaku. You don't have ta be so formal with me. I aint your captain or somethin'." The man laid back down onto the cushions, where, Hanataro now realized, he must have started out the night, and closed his eyes again.

"Now go back to sleep while you got a couple days off." His voice was stern and though the injured man was no longer tired, he lay back down anyway, remembering that he really did not want to anger this man. He could still hear him mumbling, seemingly to himself again.

"Can't believe… too early… sun's not even up… no respectable person… ungodly hour…" Hana listened to the mumbles quiet down into light snoring once again, and then found that perhaps he could do with more rest after all.

They will actually be doing more than sleeping soon, I promise. Stay tuned.

~Andromeda