Chapter 17

There was supposed to be pain. There was supposed to be blood. But there wasn't any, other than what was seeping from Byakuya's wounds on his back and from between his lips.

Somehow, Nyruki found the courage to open her eyes and what she saw she had not expected to see. The demon Byakuya lay dead on the floor with his head unnaturally cranked to one side and his throat was ripped out. The bones of his spine stuck out like broken tree trunks from the sick flesh, bleeding black all over the floor and with his tongue laying motionless through the growing puddle beneath him.

Standing above the body, hunched over in pain, was another demon Byakuya, but this one was different. The long whip like tongue didn't hang from his mouth and his eyes, those still black and red eyes, held a consciousness behind them. He stared with blurry eyes at them, his sunken features grimacing and twitching with pain, but those very same eyes were glassed over with tears that threatened to fall at any moment.

He tightly gripped his upper arm and his claws dug into his pale, unhealthy flesh, leaving weeping scratches behind that he entirely ignored. He wanted nothing to do with them like the other demons. He paid them zero mind and just stared at them.

"C-Captain?" Nyruki said as she coaxed his head to rise from her shoulder.

Byakuya gulped as he turned his head enough to look over his shoulder at the new creature, unwilling to step aside and leave her open to attack should the creature be just as hostile as the rest.

"Y-You're different." Byakuya said through his pain, unable to stand up straight from the thick peppering of quills in his back.

He began to sink down and the only reason he didn't hit the floor hard, was because Nyruki had an iron grip on him and helped to lower him down to his knees.

The demon Byakuya nodded, "Y-Yes." He said, his voice laced with an undertone beneath what would be his normal voice.

"You're the one from the tank." Nyruki said, holding onto her Captain as he slumped over against her, turning to the side just enough to keep his blurry eyes on the creature.

Again, the demon nodded, "Y-Yes... H-He did this to me... C-Changed me into this." He said, his voice shaking as his grip on his arm tightened.

"W-What is he doing?" Byakuya asked, finally shift himself enough to throw an arm over her shoulder for support.

"H-He's fusing us with our-" The demon started, but groaned in pain as more cuts appeared across his flesh, "He's fusing us with our Zanpakutōs, but he's not just fusing us with our Shikai... Some of us he's fused with our Bankai." He finished as those threatening tears began to fall.

"You're fused with yours." Nyruki breathed, planting a hand on Byakuya's chest to help support his weight.

"Y-Yes... Senbonzakura is ripping me apart from the inside. Every vein, every fiber of my being is in pain that won't stop." The demon Byakuya said with a voice so shaky that Nyruki was sure he would break down and sob at any moment.

"S-Senbonzakura is your blood." Said Byakuya, hunching over more from the pain spiking in his back.

The demon nodded, "Yes... The pain... It screams all over... My veins are filled with billions of tiny blades that cut indiscriminately." He dropped to his knees hard into the growing pool of black blood.

"Your cuts." Nyruki exhaled.

The demon Byakuya growled as his whole being was racked with the persistent, never ending pain. He wrapped his long arms around his middle and curled over, the tears pouring from his eyes to splat and mix with the black blood on the floor.

"H-How do we open the cage? Can you tell us?" Nyruki asked as she tightened her hold on him to keep him somewhat upright.

"I-If I tell you, will you p-promise to kill me?" Asked the demon, his chest hiccuping with sobs.

"Why? This is all an illusion." Byakuya said as a drop of blood from his lips dripped from his chin to land on his captain's haori.

"N-Not to me... T-To me, I've survived this horror." The demon Byakuya cried.

"Then why die if you know we will just end it?" Byakuya asked, breathing heavily as he slipped forward and pressed his shaky hand into the floor.

"She couldn't do it... She tried, but she couldn't do it... She came for me, came to rescue me, but he caught her and experimented on her until she screamed... He wanted to keep her to fuse her with her Zanpakutō, but he deemed it worthless and just used her to harvest spiritual energy... He bled her dry to fuel his experiments on us!" The demon Byakuya howled as a large, sweeping cut appeared across his chest.

"Who?" Nyruki asked, sparing a glance at Byakuya, whose eyes had become half lidded from his slipping consciousness.

"H-He knows... Please... End it for me. Let me see her again." The demon wept; a defeated man with nothing left to spare.

"Tell us which switch." Byakuya coughed.

"T-That one... That blue lever... That will release the spirit." The demon said, pointing a shaking, claw tipped finger at the console.

Nyruki spared a glance behind her and saw the lever. She reached up and pulled it, immediately being rewarded with a loud metal clink of chain that drowned out the sounds of battle in the main lab. All they could do now was wait for Kibōyūwaku to end the nightmare they were trapped in.

"T-Thank you." Nyruki said, returning her hand to Byakuya's chest just as he began to fall over.

"P-Please... K-Kill me... I-I do not have the strength to keep fighting when I know she's gone." The demon begged, his sobs lessening, but only because his painful grimace worsened as he gripped himself tighter to hold himself together.

"That sounds familiar." Byakuya said as he held back a groan of pain rising in his throat.

"I-It took so long to move on, but I finally did... I was finally able to smile again only to have this happen... He took her from me and made me watch... I was powerless to help her as she called for me... Begged me to save her... She died looking into my eyes and I went through all the pain all over again." The demon said, his sobs hopping hard in his chest as more tears fell.

"S-Shut up." Byakuya growled through lightly clenched teeth, what remained of his strength quickly fading.

"K-Kill m-me."

"Shut up! Do not speak another word! You are not the real me! You are an illusion dreamt up by that sycophantic, masochistic psychopath! You are a figment of his deluded imagination, not mine!" Byakuya barked with the hardest angry sneer across his face, his grip on Nyruki's shoulder tightening even more in his desperate attempt to stay upright.

The outburst sent him into a fit of coughing, as blood sprayed from his mouth with each wretch. The cloth of his back was striped in red, and the quills shook painfully each time he coughed. Kibōyūwaku needed to work fast and Nyruki knew it. Her Captain was dying in her arms.

"Please... Kill me!" The demon pled, his desperation painfully clear in his black and red eyes.

"If you are anything like me than you would do it yourself and die with dignity." Byakuya said coldly.

At those words, the demon's pained expression faded into blankness, a slate of nothing with eyes unseeing. He stared at the floor as if it wasn't there, as if they were hovering in midair.

"Y-You're r-right... I had forgotten... Consumed by my own misery to see that truth," The demon said as he shifted his eyes to stare into Byakuya's, "Don't let it happen to you."

In a burst of speed, the demon Byakuya picked up the fallen sword and thrust it through his own neck, spraying black blood all over the walls and floor. His eyes were wide with the last of the tears falling free, clinging to what was left as he fell backwards. The last of him faded, leaving two corpses on the floor before them, one with his throat ripped out and the other with a sword through his neck.

Nyruki hadn't realized as she watched, but she had held her breath. Her lungs burned with the ever present need for air, so she allowed it as she finally began to take short breaths, still clinging to the dying man leaning into her side.

His own eyes were fixated on the visage of himself laying dead. His anger was still on his face, his brows drawn down hard and jaw still tensed. The more she watched, the more she came to determine that he too, was holding his own breath.

"Captain?" Nyruki finally spoke as she every so gently shook his chest to garnish his attention.

At the sudden movement, Byakuya finally blinked and relaxed his brow as he glanced at her from the corner of his pained eye.

"Now, we wait." He said in a whisper, his breathing shallow and labored.

Nyruki grabbed a fistful of his sleeve as she allowed him to slump, bringing his upper half across her lap to cradle him with his front facing her. His head had fallen against her forearm with his face propped into the crook of her elbow and his arms lay limp at his side with one falling behind his back to painful knock against the quills.

"You have to stay awake, Captain." Nyruki said as she brushed aside locks of his hair to clear his face.

"I... I-" He tried, but his breath caught firm in his throat.

"Why did you do it?" She asked, suddenly realizing what she had asked, as it had been the same question he had asked her.

Byakuya turned his head up just enough to look at her with both his eyes, "B-Because... You are our only chance... If you die... we all die."

"C-Captain, I-" She tried, but the arm that laid limp over his back had risen and had placed bloody fingers against her lips.

"Ssh-... There isn't time for words." Byakuya said as his fingers fell from her lips, as his arm had gone limp.

"There's got to be something I can do. You can't die here. You can't!" Nyruki said loudly, her grip on him tightening as her eyes glassed over.

However, Byakuya didn't say a word as his short breaths brushed over the skin of her arm. He simply looked at her with his silver, half-lidded and pain filled eyes.

"Do you trust me?" Nyruki asked, her thumb beginning to gently stroke his temple.

Byakuya simply nodded.

With that as her answer, Nyruki's spiritual pressure began to bleed over him.

Nyruki shot bolt upright, her skin coated with sweat and her face streaked with tears. It was dark, cool with an ultra soft breeze that fluttered in through an open window like a butterfly's wings. The curtains fluttered against it in silence, brushing up against her skin with the barest of touches. She wiped her eyes clear and dried her cheeks on the blanket that had fallen from her chest and finally took a look around.

She was laying in a bed in a small dark room in the Squad 4 medical facility, wearing only the bandage wrappings that wrapped around her chest. Her entire body hurt and she looked down to examine where the javelin wound had been. Her belly was wrapped in more bandages and her upper arm where she had been cut on the door had also been wrapped. Her hair, which was down and entirely loose, was sweat clumped and felt chalky against her skin like she hadn't bathed in several days.

She looked to a small table next to her bed and found her hair tie that she immediately put to use as she tied up her hair into a sloppy bun. The parts of white amongst the jet black instantly fell free, but for the most part, the gross mess was out of her way.

As she took in a long breath to help clear her head, Nyruki swung her legs off the bed and took her time to steady herself on her feet as she rose. The floor was cold against her bare feet and with no sandals anywhere, she simply had to endure it. She found a thin robe hanging from a hook on the other side of the small end table and immediately wrapped herself in it, tying the sash around her waist in a simple bow with long ends that reached all the way to her knees.

She softly padded to the door and opened it without making a sound. The hallway was dark, only lit with a few small lights along the walls that glowed just enough orange to see where her feet would fall. She could see no one and for that, she was grateful. She only wanted to find out if the captains, as well as her own, were alright. She ultra softly shut the door behind her and began to walk, stopping at the next room to see a name handwritten on a tag that was pinned on a plaque, next to the door.

Captain Retsu Unohana: Do Not Disturb!

Authorized Personnel Only!

She continued tiptoeing down the hall to the next door with the same tag printed with a different name.

Captain Shunsui Kyōraku: Do Not Disturb!

Authorized Personnel Only!

She continued like that without a word, stopping at each door to see whom was inside until she reached a door with a name tag that made her stop.

She quietly wrapped her hand around the knob and turned it without a sound and slowly opened the door into the darkened room. She peered inside, sighing softly in relief as the man slept soundly in his bed, with the blanket over his chest and tucked underneath his arms with long white hair splayed out across his pillow.

She stepped inside and shut the door just as quietly as she had opened it before tiptoeing to his bedside and grasping his hand.

The sudden touch was enough to spur him awake as his dark eyes began to flutter open with the snowy silver light of the moon dancing across his face.

"N-Nyruki?" Ukitake breathed, his voice only a whisper as his fingers curled around her hand.

"Hey, Papa. We made it." She smiled as she gently sat down on the edge of the bed, still grasping his hand and resting it in her lap.

"It looks like it." he said as he took in a long breath and tried to sit up.

However, Nyruki pressed her hand into his chest to keep him down, an action he did not refuse as even in the dark, she could see the grimace and the thread thin, but red line across his chest through his identical robe.

"You're hurt." She said softly with a frown.

"Courtesy of the Shunsui creature, but it is nothing to fear. It is barely deep enough to turn red. Despite my sickly appearance, I can still move." He said as he tugged her hand to hold it against his chest, over his heart.

"How did everyone else fair?" She asked, stroking her thumb over the meat of his hand.

"A few cuts, but we were all standing when everything just... ceased to exist." Ukitake said as his other hand rose to blanket hers.

"Good. I need to find Captain Kuchiki. Have you gotten up yet?" She asked.

Ukitake shook his head, "No. This is the first time I've opened my eyes."

"He was hurt really badly. I don't know if any of the medics know yet." Nyruki said as the barest of stings began to build behind her eyes.

"Then go. Find him. I'll be alright." He said as he raised his hand and clutched the back of her neck, bringing her down to his shoulder in a soft embrace and softly kissed her temple.

"I love you, Papa." Nyruki whispered as her arms wrapped around him as best they could.

"I love you too, Flower. I cannot describe my relief that you're alright." Ukitake said, smiling as he hugged her.

"The same goes for you." Nyruki said, placing her own kiss to his cheek before sitting up.

"Go on. If he is as injured as that look on your face suggests, he needs you." Ukitake said, releasing his hold on her.

"Get some rest, Papa." She said, tucking a lock of his white hair behind his ear.

Nyruki left the room as quietly as she had entered and continued down the hall until she reached a room with a name she didn't recognize. She passed it and had reached the end where she could go no further, not having found the room with the name tag she was looking for.

She turned around and headed back the way she had come, passing Ukitake's room, passing hers, until finally, on the opposite end, being the last room, she found it.

Captain Byakuya Kuchiki: Do Not Disturb!

Authorized Personnel Only!

Intensive Care!

She held her breath as she pressed her ear to the door and heard the ultra soft groans from inside. He was in pain and could feel it crawling along her skin even from the other side of the door. His spiritual energy was trembling from it.

She gripped the knob and opened it into an identical room with the same furnishings as hers and the same colors and in the same moonlit darkness. Her eyes turned to the bed where he lay and he was slowly writhing beneath the blanket, his face pained and his eyes closed. She could see a small thin line of blood on his chin and that was all she needed to know that his new wounds had not been treated.

She stepped inside and closed the door without a sound and quietly padded to his bedside where she sat down on its edge and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"Captain? Captain, wake up." She whispered with a gentle shake.

He continued to writhe beneath her hands and his throat softly shuttered from the just as soft groans as he tossed his head from side to side with a pained grimace across his face. He tried to grip her wrists, but his fingers were no good. They refused to move as the slow creep of blood trickled down his arms from the slices in his flesh.

"Captain Kuchiki? Please wake up. It's me." Nyruki said, still in her low voice as she continued to gently shake him.

Suddenly, his eyes flew open with a sucking gasp as he shot up, his arms instantly wrapping around her with his palms and wrists aimed to the ceiling. He buried his face into her shoulder where she could feel the slick of his cold sweat across his face and neck, actually being thick enough to smear and dampen her own skin.

She remained as still as possible, mostly from the start of him waking up so suddenly and having grabbed onto her as if he were having a night terror, which wasn't too far from the truth. She couldn't blame him at all, so her arms made their way around him and her hand rested against the nape of his neck where she ever so softly began to rock from side to side, holding him close.

"Ssh-" She exhaled, "It's ok. We're out now. It's me." She whispered into his ear as she just held him, his whole form shuttering from his tremors.

Even in the moonlight, she could see his shaking and not just feel it. He was quivering, shivering even and each exhale was just as shaky as his body was. He was freezing to the touch and the only thing that served to break up the chilled feeling of him was the heat that peppered his back.

She peered over his shoulder and down at her hand that had come to rest against his back. Her palm was smeared with blood from the punctures and the sheet that he had been laying on was stained. His blood had soaked through his robe and onto the bed.

"We need to take care of your wounds, Captain." She whispered as she ignored the blood on her hand and softly grasped his shoulders.

However, he made no attempt to move from her arms as he continued to breath with short, quick sucks of air, his arms tightening around her as if he was scared to let her go. He was still trapped in the thralls of his night terror.

"Captain... Hey, it's ok. We're ok." She whispered once more as she again softly pushed on his shoulders.

This time, he obeyed, but only just. He still leaned into her hands as he raised his head to look at her with glossy eyes and wrists aimed at the ceiling.

"N-Nyruki?" He croaked out, his hair falling nearly completely in front of his face.

"Yes." She said with a hand resting on his chest, over his heart that was thundering like a beating drum.

He tried to use a limp hand to brush aside some hair, "I... I can't move my hands." He said as he visibly tried to bend his fingers that wouldn't move.

"I know. Here... Let me help." She said as she took the task of brushing aside the locks upon herself and tucked a few behind his ear to clearly reveal his pained face.

"Heal me." He whispered, staring at his useless hands shaking in front of him.

"We'll get you cleaned up, Captain." She said softly as she supported his wrists in her hands, still with his palms up.

"Please... Heal me." He said softly with shaky breaths.

Nyruki exhaled, "Ok. Let me see if I can find some-"

"You do it." He interrupted as he finally looked up at her with his breathing evening out.

"Me? C-Captain, that's not really my strong suit. You saw when I tried to fix up your shoulder. It was pathetic." Nyruki said, still holding his wrists gently.

"You need the practice." Byakuya said simply.

Nyruki blew out a nervous breath as she carefully rolled the sleeves of his robe back to keep them out of the way of his wrists. The cuts were long and deep, cutting just enough to sever his tendons and render his hands useless. The blood dripped from his skin to silently dropped onto his blanket and the mere sight of it was enough to completely convince her that there was no time to search for someone else. She needed to do it even if the only outcome was to stop the bleeding.

"Alright." She nodded.

"C-Clear your mind and breathe. Let the positive energy flow from your vents." He said softly as he watched her and continued to tremble.

She nodded again as she calmly began to take in breaths, cool and collected, and brought her hands up to hover just above the cuts on his wrists. She thought of nothing, of no one, she simply concentrated on letting her spiritual energy trickle from the subtle vents in her wrists just as he had said.

Before long, the soft blue colored glow began to radiate from her palms, lighting his skin just enough to catch a glimpse of the sweat that had left behind a satin sheen. She could feel the warmth from just her hands and even in the low light, the sudden shutter that racked through him that grew a thin layer of gooseflesh along his arms was not lost.

"Are you alright?" She asked, watching him closely to see the barely visible shivers that had begun to rocket throughout his entire body.

"Yes. Just cold." He said as he watched his wrists.

"Here, lets cover your shoulders." She said as she dropped her hands and let the glow vanish.

She grabbed the blood stained blanket from his lap and pulled it behind him before she reached around and tugged it up to cover his quivering shoulders. She wrapped it around him enough to cover him, but left his forearms exposed so she could continue her work.

"Is that better?" She asked, still fiddling with the blanket so it was closed around his chest.

"Yes." He hunkered down into the blanket.

"How come you're cold? Am I not doing this right?" Nyruki asked as she returned her attention to his wrists.

"I am always cold when I'm being healed. Don't you remember?" Byakuya asked with eyes shifting up to look at her.

"Remember?" Nyruki blinked.

"Two years ago when you cut me." He said.

Nyruki instantly remembered what he was talking about. It had been so long ago it seemed. In fact, it was two years ago and she had pushed the memory from her mind, but now, he having mentioned it, she remembered it like she had found an old picture.

Two years ago

"An enemy always has an opening, Nyruki Sawada! If they say they do not, then they are lying! Look for it!" Byakuya called to her from the opposite side of the training ground with a swirling mass of pink pedals surrounding him like a tornado.

"How am I supposed to find it when you're covered in those?" Nyruki called back, gripping her Zanpakutō tightly in both hands.

"Look passed Senbonzakura! Look through the blades!" Byakuya answered.

Nyruki grit her teeth together as she watched the swirling of his thousand blades, fluttering and shining with the soft pink of cherry blossoms. It was as beautiful as it was deadly, elegant and wondrous. Truly befitting such a man who held his head high with rank and title and brimmed with a pride that bordered on arrogance.

But she needed to learn to fight, learn to take advantage of every opening offered in order to defeat her opponents, training, or otherwise. She needed to see, needed to look passed the deadly pink storm and she only had seconds to do it.

With a rustling whoosh, the blades of Senbonzakura rushed out from their master, eager to rend her flesh. She flash stepped away and rushed for her opponent, her sword at the ready when she saw it. His posture was slightly off with his left arm raised. He had used his hands to command Senbonzakura to increase the speed. There it was; Her opening, behind the shield of his deadly pink rampage.

With a single slice, Nyruki brought her blade across her chest and planted her feet in the dirt to come to a halt behind him. Her arm dripped with fresh blood from having not dodged all of Senbonzakura's blades, but the harsh splash of blood from behind her whirled her around.

She had cut Captain Byakuya Kuchiki deep in his side.

"I remember." Nyruki said with the soft energy beginning to shrink the slices in his flesh.

"Then you remember how warm my room was when you and Captain Ukitake came to visit." Byakuya said.

Two years ago.

Squad 4 Medical Facility

Nyruki walked with hands clinging to a small pot that had been dyed a midnight blue and hand painted with a crescent moon. The pot had become the home of a small sapling, a tiny little twig of a thing she had found trying to grow amongst the shadows of larger trees near the Academy grounds. She felt sorry for the little thing, and decided to give it a chance by offering it as a gift; A tiny, little cherry blossom tree so far from home.

Her and Captain Ukitake reached the room and entered with a soft knock, only to be smacked in the face by a wave of heat that felt like they were standing too close to a raging fire.

"Holy realms is it hot in here." Ukitake gasped as he fanned himself with the hem of his captain's haori in an attempt to cool off.

"It's comfortable." Said Byakuya, sitting up in his hospital bed with a stack of pillows behind his back for support.

"It's a sauna." Nyruki tried not to laugh, but it happened anyways.

Byakuya shifted his gaze from his book to glare at his visitors, "I assume you have come for another reason other than to make fun of my preferred temperatures."

"Of course! Flo- uh... Nyruki felt terrible for causing such an injury that she wanted to bring a peace offering she found trying to grow near her dorm at the Academy." Ukitake said as he pulled up a chair and sat down.

Byakuya softly closed his book and looked at the small pot in Nyruki's hands, "A tree?"

Nyruki's cheeks burned with a rising blush, or was it the heat, she wasn't positive, "Mmhmm. It's a cherry blossom sapling... I think." She said, holding out the small pot.

Byakuya reached out and took the pot from her and examined the small plant, "It is. Barely old enough to break ground. Thank you." He said as he tried to turn himself to put the pot on the side table, but stopped as the sharp ache began to thunder in his side.

Nyruki snatched the pot from his hands and set it down on the table for him, relieving him of the task of having to turn.

"Thank you." He said as he turned straight once more.

"I'm really sorry for cutting you like that, Captain." Nyruki said as a nervous roll began to throb in her gut.

"Don't be. You did exactly as I wished you to." Byakuya said as he just looked down at the cover of his book resting in his lap.

"W-What?" Nyruki said with a small gasp.

"I purposefully opened myself for a strike with the hopes that you would see it and you did." Byakuya said simply.

"But-" Nyruki tried.

"It is training, Nyruki Sawada. If we train as if it is the real thing, than when we are faced with it, we are prepared." Byakuya said, having raised a hand to interrupt her.

"In reality, all battles are the real thing. Training, or otherwise." Ukitake added.

Byakuya nodded, "You did well, Nyruki Sawada."

Nyruki's blush burned harder, "T-Thank you, Captain Kuchiki!" She bowed.

Nyruki softly smiled as she continued to heal his wrists. The cuts had shrunk down to small slits, but they were still angry and red. The bleeding had stopped and she was pleased that they were somewhat healing, but she doubted just how far she could take it. She wasn't sure she could heal them entirely.

"Yes. I remember that too. Hotter than the pits of Hell it was." She softly laughed low in her throat.

"And it should be in here as well once I get ahold of someone to increase the temperature." Byakuya said as another shiver threatened to shoot through him.

However, between the warmth on his arms and the coolness of the air around him, the shiver came anyways and spiked another layer of gooseflesh over his skin. All of it.

"This does not feel pleasant with these wounds." Byakuya said as he rode out the shiver by closing his eyes and lowering his head to muscle passed the pain from his back.

"I can imagine. I don't think I'll be much longer anyways. I'm just not good enough at this to heal them completely." Nyruki said with a sigh as the cuts hadn't progressed any further.

With another sigh, and a bit of a displeased frown, Nyruki allowed the soft glow to vanish and she softly pressed her fingers into his flesh around the cuts.

"I'm afraid this is the best I can do, Captain. How does that feel?" She asked, dropping her hands into her lap.

Byakuya didn't say anything as he focused on curling his fingers. It was slow, painful, but this time, they moved and even curled completely into loose fists.

"Far better than before." He said simply as he relaxed his hands.

Nyruki softly smiled as she stood, "Lets get some bandages on them before I start on your back."

She rummaged through the few drawers and cupboards in the room and breathed a sigh of relief when she found a few rolls of bandages, a spare robe and an extra set of bed linens tucked in the cupboard underneath the side table. She set the clean rope and bed linens on top and sat back down in front of him where she used a corner of the stained blanket to wipe away the blood before wrapping each wrist in the bandages.

"That too tight?" She asked as she tucked the end of the bandage in to secure it.

"No. That is adequate." He said in a whisper with another flex of his fingers.

"Good. Now... Your back." Nyruki sighed.

As she rose and carefully sat down on the bed behind him, she clutched the blanket and tugged it from his shoulders as much as he didn't want her to. He didn't refuse and allowed the blanket to fall, revealing his bloody robe covered back riddled with dots of blood from shoulder blade to the small of his back.

"By the realms-" She exhaled as she ever so carefully began to peal the soiled robe away from his skin.

"I'm sure it looks as bad as it feels." Byakuya said, still lightly shivering as he glanced over his shoulder at her.

"It's... It's not good." Nyruki said, continuing to roll the robe away from his skin.

The robe, thankfully, easily pulled away, fully revealing the dozens of punctures that peppered his back. Each one was the size of a pen, almost as if someone had taken one and repeatedly stabbed him in the back with it, over and over again. Blood trickled down his pale flesh, but didn't make it very far as she used the same stained blanket to clean it away.

With the lingering blood gone, Nyruki hovered her hands over his skin as she allowed the same warm glow to return from her palms. The moment the warmth touched down, he was racked with another shiver and with a larger swath of flesh within her view, there was no mistaking the gooseflesh that erupted across the pale landscape.

"I'm sorry, Captain." Nyruki whispered, feeling bad for adding to how cold he felt.

"I-It's alright. I'll endure." Byakuya said with a noticeable chatter in his teeth.

Nyruki softly smiled and continued to work at healing his wounds. It took some time, all of it filled with silence, but as the moon rose high enough to beam the full force of its etherial light into his window, the punctures had shrunk and closed to the point where they were harsh welts.

There was only one last step and that was to wrap his torso with bandages to keep the fabric of his robe from chaffing against his still angry wounds. She grasped the first roll and began to wrap him, looping the bandage around each shoulder and encircled his entire torso until each spot was firmly covered where she secured it by tucking the end at his side.

"There. It's not perfect, but I hope that's better." Nyruki said with a tired sigh. She felt exhausted.

"It is." He said with another shiver.

Nyruki stood and picked up the new robe from the side table, "Here... I'll change the bedding while you put this on."

Byakuya nodded as he turned to set his bare feet on the floor, which only served to send yet another shiver through his entire body that she saw in the width of his shoulders. He stood, albeit slowly, and took the robe from her, but as he untied the sash around his waist to change, Nyruki, with cheeks burning, focused purely on changing the bedding.

After a tense moment, for her at least, the bed was clean with fresh linens and Byakuya was covered with a clean robe. He sat back down and swung his legs beneath the fresh blanket, but his teeth still chattered and what flesh that was still exposed was still layered in gooseflesh that was clear in the moonlight.

"I don't think there's another blanket, Captain." Nyruki said softly as she balled up the soiled bedding and robe and set them down in the chair against the wall.

"T-There isn't." He said through his chatters as he laid down and curled into himself on his side, facing the window.

The sight actually caused a physical ache to throb in her chest at seeing him so helpless and so weak. The man was the embodiment of strength, of power, whose very words could shatter the resolve of any opponent, but here, wounded, exhausted and shivering with cold, he was vulnerable.

"You need to be kept warm." Nyruki sighed softly as she sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"I'll survive." Byakuya said with a muffled voice, having buried his face in the blanket.

Nyruki's cheeks burned as she thought about what she was doing. She released a sigh and ignored the nervous roll twitching in her stomach as she maneuvered over his legs to sit on the other side, nearest the window.

"Then survive you shall, but I'm not leaving while you're shivering." Nyruki whispered as she tugged the blanket out from underneath her.

With the blanket over them both, Nyruki laid down on her side with her back to him and pressed back against him. His arm came to rest over her side and pulled her tight to his chest without hesitation, telling her that his desire for warmth outweighed his desire to avoid any awkwardness. She could feel just how cold he was, his shivers never ceasing, but his slow breathing was hot against the back of her neck when he buried his face in its crook.

His other arm had snaked its way underneath her head, resting her ear against his bicep where she could hear the subtle thump of his pulse beneath her temple. It was calm, steady, the pulse of someone whom was about to fall into a dreamless sleep. His shivering was subtle against her back, but as her body heat warmed the cocoon beneath their blanket, it slowed until it was nearly gone.

Here, in reality, and again in his arms, that same sensation of safety returned. She felt like nothing in the world could reach her, that nothing could harm her. She felt completely encased in an impenetrable shield and she didn't know why. There was just something about having him close that eased any worry, any tension, any doubts, within her mind.

She was safe there in the embrace of the camellia flower, bathed in the silver moonlight and finally free of the Twilight Forest. Her only question now, was what would come with the morning.