Quetzal - well Desolation has been expanded on finally. This as well as the two drabbles to follow occur over the course of Desolation which is from Isshin's point of view. Ill probably post part 3 tomorrow it needs a few tweaks before I put it up and part four needs another page before its done. (for those of you here because you want news on Snow point the next chapter should be up no later then Monday. It was originally going to go up today but its just not quite there yet.)

xxx

Despair

Sound the bugle now - play it just for me

As the seasons change - remember how I used to be

Now I can't go on - I can't even start

I've got nothing left - just an empty heart

Sound the Bugle : Bryan Adams

x x x

Three months. Three month since he made the worst decision of his short life. The gaping black hole in his soul couldn't be ignored, it couldn't be forgotten, it was forever.

He would never again doubt the truth of 'you don't know what you have until you've lost it' Zangetsu was gone, and all because he wasn't strong enough to get rid of Aizen without destroying himself in the process. He hadn't even been able to kill the bastard, just knock him down long enough for Urahara's kido to finally work.

And hadn't that just been salt in the wound? Idiot. If only Kisuke had said something about his kido. The power he had when he left the dangai had been immense, and he may have known when Aizen had evolved that last time that he didn't have the power to kill him, but hurt him enough for that spell to work? Maybe, just maybe he could have done it.

He could have pulled on everything he had short of his trump card, and ripped the bastard apart, he could have done it. He KNEW it, if anything that certainty just made it hurt still more. He'd given everything. Everything. And in the end, it hadn't been necessary to go that far. Zangetsu had realized that at the same moment he had. Kisuke had gone and told Aizen about the spell he had planted early in the fight, and the hope that Ichigo would be able to knock him down far enough for it to work. Zangetsu had told him it was alright, but it WASN'T ALRIGHT! He wanted to hate Kisuke so much for that, but he couldn't, just like he couldn't tell the bastard that his fate was completely unnecessary if he would have just explained his god damn plan for once.

Now he had nothing, not even what he'd started with.

x x x

Quetzal - short and sad. On the upside this story does have a happy ending in part 4