Um. Yes. This is incredibly short for a chapter. I'll be nice and upload chapter three later this week instead of next Sunday. I have decided to upload once a week on Sundays. It's better this way. (: This also means that chapter four will be uploaded next Sunday.

Oh. And they aren't soul mates. Nope. They suit each other very well, yes, but not soul mates. I already made them be soul mates in a different story anyway.

I threw out all honorifics because I have no idea what anyone'd say to each other and I used the dub terms. Except shinigami. That I kept.

"Karin! Where are you?!" Toushirou cried into the white landscape. The snow muffled his voice, and the wind blew harder. He pushed forward, stepping through the snow as it bowed to his command and moved aside to make an easy path. "Karin!" he cried again, in desperation.

A cry answered him. The weather made any words hard to make out, but he heard it and headed in that direction. Karin has to be over this way, he thought. Toushirou didn't bother to think about what would happen if it wasn't the girl he was searching for.

—x—

Karin wandered through the snow, lost. She knew she had been with Toushirou before; but what they had been doing, or where they were going, she did not know. In the distance she heard a cry that sounded like someone calling her name. "Toushirou! Where are you?" she called out, hoping whoever was yelling her name was her companion.

The snow was falling heavily and the wind blew it every which way. Karin continued to call for him, and finally she figured she and the other person were close enough to each other that she managed to make out some words. In relief she saw that it was indeed the boy she was yelling for.

—x—

"Karin!"

"Toushirou!" The two met and grabbed each other in fierce hugs. They didn't let go for another minute, and when they did, they held hands to make sure the other did not disappear.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know. I was with you, and then suddenly I was not." She looked around. "Where are we?"

"I'm not sure…" He took another look around them. The area would be familiar if it weren't for the heavily falling snow. In his mind's eye, he took away the current weather conditions and instead replaced it with fewer flakes and a lighter wind. "This looks like my inner soul."

"Why am I in here?" she asked. "And why wouldn't you know right away?"

"I don't know the answer to either question for sure. Maybe it's that your soul doesn't belong here. And perhaps it's because this is…"

She gasped in horror. "…a dream?!" she finished. "But why?" she wailed.

—x—

Karin and Toushirou sat up in a synchronized movement. Then, aware of the other's presence, they turned their heads to lock eyes. "Toushirou, where… where are we now?" she asked, drawing her knees to her chest.

"It looks like we're in the Fourth Division…" he muttered, looking around them. They were in two identical beds in a room that had no windows, and what looked like no doors—high level kidou, he knew, kept them in wherever they were and only a master would be able to open a door. He was no master, and there was no way Karin would be able to break out.

"Why are we here, together, in the same room?" she asked, getting off her bed and moving over to his.

"Someone must have taken you from the human world," he deduced. "Though why I'm here with you is beyond me."

"Well, there's nothing for it. Let's just go back to sleep." Karin made to get off his bed, but he grabbed her hand. "Toushirou?" she asked in surprise, feeling déjà vu at the situation.

"Stay here. I didn't like that dream. Maybe, if we sleep closer together, a good dream will come."

"Makes sense," she said, and climbed in next to him.

The two were asleep within minutes.

DISCLAIMER: If I owned Bleach I'd have a scene where Toushirou would have a soccer ball hit his face. Since that's not going to happen anytime soon, I don't think I own Bleach.