A/N: Hey there, minna! Been tied up with an RP group over on Tumblr, check out the tag "Sgrub game v. 2.0" for all the shenanigans. We're writing like crazy over there. lol Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy! Ja ne!

Shinji pushed Ichigo, who was bared to the waist and also covered in immaculate runes, through the door. Truly the King's pattern was the perfect duplicate to prepare him for the transference. Frankly, it shocked the Mage, who caught himself looking between his twin and the book several times before he cleared his throat. Ichigo blushed and shrugged, the unspoken question remaining unanswered in the air. The blond stepped over proudly to stand next to his mate with a smug grin, hands on his hips. The strangest part was the soft glow to his fingertips, but it dissipated so quickly, Shiro wasn't entirely sure he'd seen it.

Famine gave his mate an extremely concerned look, but didn't say anything. Not when he was so pleased with himself. Instead, he gave a bowl with half the potion to Ichigo and yanked on Grimmjow's horns until he was forced to open his mouth from having it pulled back so far.

"Be prepared. All of his memories will hit you at once when the transfer begins. Do not block them or we'll have to start all over again, and if we do this more than once or twice it will destroy his mind," the brunette cautioned before he poured the purple liquid straight into Conquest's gaping maw and forced him to swallow with another spell.

Ichigo nodded and treated the disgusting potion like a shot throwing it back in one go. He smacked his lips a few times, trying to get the residual taste from his mouth. Then everything hit him, and Shinji stepped up to grab his shoulders as the only person in position to do so. The magic shot through the King, and he collapsed, only the blond's hands holding him up. Like a curtain of water, the orangette was bathed in a multi-hued glow. Where it met Shinji's skin as opposed to Ichigo's, the magic was repelled by a soft gold light, but neither affected male was paying attention to it.

Across the room Grimmjow was covered in the same multi-hued glow, and his eyes were blotted out with the brilliant rainbows of light as his body convulsed and bucked in its bindings, tail lashing and mouth open in a silent scream.

Aizen held him, mimicking his mate and noting the glow that protected the blond. A similar light, in soft crimson, protected the Third where he touched the First. There was something to be said about that but it would have to wait until later, when he and his mate could discuss the ramifications at length.

It took what seemed like hours for all of Conquest's memories to tuck themselves safely into the King's mind, but when they had, the glow faded away, draining from all parties involved like nothing ever had been there. Shinji stumbled a little, the full weight of the orangette falling back against his chest, but he managed to stay standing, a feat which left him grinning at his lover as he guided Ichigo to the floor gently. At the same time, as naked as he had been the first time they'd had to bring him back, Grimmjow too slumped in his bonds, much like the King.

"Well, I'll be..." The blond chuckled, stepping away from the exhausted monarch. "He's naturally blue. Heh." Giving the former-feline an appraising eye, Shinji smirked, "Yer bigger, So-so."

Aizen slid down to the floor, arm thrown over his eyes, and chuckled weakly. Unlike Ulquiorra, his wings could not function as supports, and at times like this he truly regretted that. "I'm flattered you would say so, love. I…uh...I am rather weak at the moment...could you hand Ichigo to his twin and help me up?"

Having already done that, Shinji easily crossed the room to give his lover a hand, though touching the other male sent electric shocks through his arm, and had sparklers going off in the back of his skull. If he winced, he controlled it very well, but the entirety of his mind felt like it was on fire.

Aizen, head still spinning himself, didn't catch it, and even if he had, it was too late. His magic was un-channeled, unfettered, free and unbound, and when he realized it, he slammed the gates on it shut, eyes shooting to his Mate's face, filled with worry and fear.

Master of the human mask, the blond grinned, his piano-teeth pearly against his skin. "Ya look like ya could use some coffee, ne? An' mebbe, one o' those scones ya like so much."

Aizen sighed. He was not on top of his game, and for once unable to see through that façade. He leaned on his mate and kissed his shoulder. "Yes...I think that might bolster me a bit," he chuckled. "Enough to get home, anyway."

"There's a kitchen 'round here, yeah?" Shinji wrapped his arm around his lover's waist.

"Hai," Shiro answered, also feeling a bit pale, but handling it better due to his position in the Court. "Just go 'cross th' courtyard an' it's th' second door on th' left in the Common Buildin'."

"Thanks."

The blond guided his butterfly out the door as the Mage gathered first his twin and then Conquest to arrange them comfortably on the bed where they could sleep off the effects of the spell.

Famine tried not to lean too heavily on the blond, and when a dark shadow appeared at his other side to put his arm over their shoulder he was confused for a second before his wings gave a loud buzz of annoyance. "I'm not an invalid, Death!"

"I'm aware."

"I am just fine!"

"I'm sure."

The butterfly gave another buzz-flutter. "Then why are you babying me?!"

"Because I don't dare go near the Royal Chambers and couldn't do a damn thing to help other than fetch you." Emerald eyes peered up into dark chocolate, and the two held the connection for a few moments, before Aizen looked away, too tired to truly fight.

"...damn. Fine," he huffed.

It was true, Qio did hate to feel useless, and there really was nothing for the slim demon to do until Shiro exited the North building. The Third just hated feeling like he couldn't take care of himself. He'd been on his own perfectly fine for centuries. One measly spell wasn't going to knock him down for long, of that he was damn sure. However, there was something to be said for being comforted by those he called family.

Shinji giggled. "Yah, best ta let th' lovebirds rest a bit. Yer Mage'll be needin' ya when he's done wit' 'em though. He looked paler'n normal."

His eyebrows wiggled at the joke, completely ignoring the fact that he shouldn't know what 'normal' was for the albino, nor should the statement of his title have carried the importance it did. A normal human, even one that had the potential to be Awakened, should not be able to make reality shiver like that.

Ulquiorra knew it was a Bad Thing when his wings faltered and his horns vibrated to set a ringing alarm off inside his head, but with the internal shrieking he couldn't think what it was or if he ought to tell Aizen, so he just shook his head. "Ah...yes...I will...but let's get you to the kitchen first."

That the butterfly was alert enough to notice. "Qio, are you-"

"JUST FINE," he growled. "I'm sure my mate simply loosed a little magic again, you know how his spells affect me."

"Eesh..." Shinji blinked and sucked his teeth, "Ya need ta relax, Batty-boy. Keep jumpin' like that and y'ill wind up killin' yerself ag'in."

Again there was a ripple, only it was soothing, like the waves of a pond on a hot summer afternoon, and it washed over them both with the sensation of sunshine. Aizen immediately melted into the feeling, eyes fluttering once again.

However, like a struck tuning fork, Ulquiorra's horns again vibrated, producing a high, clear tone that made his eyes cross. No matter how slight or soothing the ripple, it always somehow rebounded between his horns and made him dizzy and wobbly.

"I can't help myself when my internal magic alarm keeps going off," he grumbled, head aching even as his body tried to relax.

"That seems odd. Why would yer 'internal magic alarm'," The blond said in the same exact manner as the Fourth, "be goin' off in th' first place?" He held the door to the common building open so Ulquiorra could guide Aizen in first.

"I don't know. All I can discern is there is heavy magic in the area, which doesn't help considering my mate is the Court Mage. Thus I am constantly around magic. I need to find that spell to turn my alarm off," the bat grumbled as he guided the butterfly to a nearby chair and helped him into it before fluttering up to one of his own special perches installed on the ceiling, hanging upside down and wrapping his wings like a cape.

"Well, have ya tried just...like...askin' fer it ta be turned off?" Shinji moved about the kitchen as if he lived there—handed a cup to the coffeepot, pulled a plate from the exact cabinet where they belonged, placed a scone given to him by the freezer on it, and offered it to the toaster oven—all as though he worked with living appliances every day of his life. Then he turned and looked up at Death. "I dunno, mebbe sum'thin' like 'Gods of silence, hear my prayer, make th' sound that isn't there vanish from within my mind b'fore I wind up goin' blind'."

Both Horsemen looked at him in surprise and shock for a moment, then a soft black pulse rippled over Ulquiorra. "...Shinji. What you just did...you...Aizen?"

The Third pulled his human to him. "My sweet mate, my darling love...you just cast a spell on him. Which you should not be able to do, not that it's a bad thing. As soon as I've recovered, we need to leave to prevent the magic-infested air of the Court from changing you any further. We wouldn't want you accidentally cursing those jocks while trash talking, now would we?"

"Eh...uh...ok. As soon as ya've got yer strength back, we c'n go...I guess."

The blond frowned, unsure what it was that he'd done exactly, but if his lover was concerned about it, he figured that he probably shouldn't tell them he'd read it in a book yesterday. Or at least he thought he had. He remembered reading the book. In fact, he remembered reading it often, regularly referencing it for things, though he wasn't sure what exactly he'd need wolfsbane and dragonsblood for at college.

Aizen ate his scone, drank his coffee, and spirited his mate back home as fast as he could Flit. He needed to protect him from Awakening...if it could even be stopped now.

Shinji giggled, as he always did when they Flitted, "I don' know why yer so scared. I'm fine. So what if I c'n catch snippets o' stuff. If they help an' ain't hurtin' me, what's th' big deal?"

Aizen simply kissed him, much to the blond's confusion. How could he tell him what he suspected? How could he say 'I think you're Awakening and if it drives you insane like every other time we both will die'? He couldn't. So he just rocked his mate and prayed, for the first time, his calculations were incorrect.

"C'mon," The lithe younger male twisted in his lover's arms until he had one hand trapped between both of his own so he could drag the brunette back to their bedroom, dismissing the undercurrent of worry hanging between them. "We've still got an anniversary ta celebrate!"

It was a week or so later, as once again the Veil began to thin as the days marched steadily towards Samhain, when Shinji had his first migraine since returning home. He was coming out of another of Professor Marechiyo's required but irritating current events classes, and joking with a young man also from Japan with long, painfully straight white hair. He'd transferred in and been assigned to the blond for orientation, finding that working with his lover meant his grasp of Japanese was much better than that of any of his peers. So, when Jushiro cracked a joke about his head being too full, the pale Sophomore practically panicked as Shinji fell to his knees, clutching his temples.

Immediately, the paler student flew to his side, rubbing his back and calling his name, but the blond didn't hear him. He was lost for the moment in a vision of crusaders bearing torches crying out for murder and destruction in the name of a god created by a heretic and perpetuated by fanatics.

It took several minutes, and Jushiro violently shaking his shoulder, for the vision to fade. Slapping on his signature grin, Shinji climbed back to his feet and brushed off his classmate's worries. He laughed, "Mah. I'm fine. Just all that BS Mary-chan's shovin' at us, ne?"

The snowtop didn't seem quite convinced, but there was nothing that he could do about it, so he simply mumbled, "Must be."

The two went on about their day as though nothing had happened, at least on Shinji's part. Little did the blond realize how his cheeks had begun to sink in, and circles were growing under his eyes. All this merely got worse as the days passed. Knowing something of chronic illness himself, Jushiro tried to get him to acknowledge what was going on, without much success.

"Hirako-san, I can't help noticing you're looking almost as pale as I am today."

The white-haired male commented three days before Halloween, when the blond finally had gotten to a point where his smile was strained and his energy was limp. How he managed to hide it from his over-attentive boyfriend was beyond the foreign transfer student.

"Mah." Shinji said weakly, leaning against the wall of the library, where they were waiting for Jushiro's other half, a shameless flirt from their class with a heart of gold and an odd sense of fashion.

"Don't tell me you're fine, Hirako-san. You are anything but fine. Believe me, I know fine, and you are not it." The snowtop scolded.

Huffing, the blond looked away. "It's nothin' ta worry about. I'll be fine once it's over."

"Once what's over?" The one they were waiting for stepped out of the building with his odd straw hat and ballet pink hoodie covered in cherry blossoms.

"Hirako-san is once again denying that anything is wrong with him, when clearly, there is!" Jushiro frowned.

The lanky basketball player, with wavy brunette hair that reached the middle of his back, ran a hand over his chin, scratching the slight scruff. "Well, if he's not comfortable talkin' about it, I don't see how it's our business, Jyuu-chan. But we should try to keep some meat on his bones, and probably see if we can't get him to laugh a bit more."

"Oi, Shunsui! Don't talk 'bout me like I ain't…even…here?"

Shinji trailed off, hand flying to his head as he pushed off from the wall to stumble several steps forward, overcome with dizziness and that blinding pain erupting between his temples. He was completely unaware of the other two stepping up to try and grab him as he crashed to his knees in the middle of the sidewalk.

Within his mind, the blond saw a great winged beast, half lion, half eagle soaring over his head, but on its tail was a cloaked figure with a silver cross hanging outside the almost black jerkin. The figure raised a crossbow and Shinji felt himself jump in the way of the bolt, letting the griffin escape. The hunter wrenched the protruding wood from the blond's shoulder and tossed him against a tree, full intending to shoot him again, but his hands flew up and a gold light surrounded them.

"Diana, Huntress of the Moon, protect Your Paladin from this doom, turn the bolt and bend the blade, let this wretched soul be saved!" Inside the vision, he spoke perfect English, but to the two trying to help him, it was some gibberish that combined Latin and German.

Light exploded from him, knocking Jushiro to the ground...well, almost. The white-haired student landed in Shunsui's lap. The two smiled at each other nervously, then immediately ran back to Shinji's aid.

"Hirako-san! Are you alright?" Jushiro hesitated to touch the shaking blond, and Shunsui pulled off his hoodie to drape over Shinji's shoulders.

Feeling the bolt of magic from the cafe where he'd been waiting, Aizen shot up. The only thought in his head was Magic. Magic on the Campus. MATE! With no further input, his body took off, and all of a sudden he was there, Shinji cradled in his arms, crooning in German and stroking his head, soothing vermillion magic weaving around him.

The blond sobbed, "Whyyy~!? Why'd they hafta kill it!? Th' feathers don't do nothin'!"

Again Jushiro and his cushion exchanged a look, "We'll...ah...leave you to it, Aizen-san." The white-haired student said, bowing and pulling away from the pair.

"So…Jyuu-chan, I hear you like candy?" The tall, long-haired brunette threw his arm around the paler male's shoulders as they walked away, their conversation drifting away on the wind.

Aizen rocked him. The only creature whose feathers had no use were—"Griffins were powerful, strong, defenders of home and those they called friends. In order to wage war on any those the griffins protected, they...had to get around them. They chose to do so by...destroying them all. And taking the...the...wings as their...their trophies." He bent his head over the smaller man, holding him close, wings tucked around them both in a curtain of brownish-red pain that was almost invisible to the outside world.

"I know! It's not fair! All it was tryin' ta do was make a nest...why? Why are they so evil?" Tortured, searching eyes looked up into the butterfly's face. He was lost, more hurt by the death of the creature in his mind than he had been by his own abuse.

"Because they are stupid, arrogant and greedy. Narcissistic and of the belief that they are Gods. And anything that does not fit that worldview must be destroyed." Famine pressed their foreheads together. "They're all gone, my love. All of them. I could not save them, though I tried. Humans propagate so quickly," his voice lowered to a snarl, "I could never kill them off fast enough! So I made them suffer, but it did not bring them back. I cannot bring them back. Not anymore."

"Wh-what about th'...th' others?" He whimpered, clutching Aizen's shirt. "So many others...gone...all gone...an' I...an' I...why wasn't I here? Why couldn't I save 'em? It's m' job...I was s'posed ta..." He was panting, calming and mumbling now, collapsed against his lover as the pain drained away.

"You were not yourself and that was not your job. T'was mine. T'was I who failed, not you, my love," Aizen murmured, bundling him up in his arms and taking him home.

He was Awakening, there was no mistaking it. And such events could not be stopped, so what was he to do now? It was mind-numb instinct that found his Flit ending at the Shrine instead of the apartment where the two had been living for the last year. The brunette didn't even notice as he entered the South building and into his sanctuary.

"But...I'm th'..." He trailed off, passed out against his lover's chest, but still trembling in his unconsciousness. His lips still moved, silent words, mumbling of the horrors he saw behind his eyelids.

Aizen whispered a spell to quiet his mind, to put the memories back where they belonged—in the darkness of the past lives. Still, he knew it was only a temporary measure. He tucked Shinji into his bed, then sat on the edge and buried his face in his hands, not an inch from crying. His lover, his soul mate, was going to die…again. He didn't care about his own death, after this long he fucking welcomed it, but not Shinji. Not as he was just on the edge of coming into himself, of gaining his sanity and restoring his soul! The warlock deserved so much more than he could ever have done to her for this!

A cough came from the doorway of the bedroom, subtle, but with an air of power.

Aizen's wings snapped out and alert even as his head came up in startled reflex, though when he saw his King standing there he quickly blinked away the glossiness of the threatening tears and cleared his closed throat.

"Some—" he swallowed to loosen the tight muscle, he sounded so hoarse and raspy, "Something I can do for you, my King?"

"You seem to have a problem that is affecting the entire Court, Famine. It's not every day my brother has to cast a bubble over the library to keep his lover from running into the wall. So, instead I must ask, is there something I can do for you?" Ichigo leaned against the doorframe, worry on his face, and his arms crossed over his chest. The vein in his temple was throbbing, a telltale sign that the monarch had a pounding headache.

The butterfly's resulting chuckle was weak, hollow. "I apologize, but in this instance, I do not think so. My mate is Awakening. Due to the trauma in his lives, the pain in his memories thanks to that foul curse keeping me separate from him, this will drive him insane, just as it has every time before. It is the horror of what it means to have a broken Key, that they die so close to becoming who they were meant to be—" his voice broke again, and it took him a few minutes of dead silence and several hard swallows to continue. "That being the case, he will t-take his own life, and n-nothing I nor anyone else can do will st-stop him. He is, after all, th-the Paladin," a sort of hysterical laugh followed this as he pressed one hand to his eyes. "He is literally the only one who can refuse your direct Orders, so even your Directive not to take s-suicide or to stay sane would fail to help."

"What if he didn't remember?"

The orangette frowned, looking over the slim blond that was both so familiar and so foreign at the same time. Until the Paladin truly Awakened, the figure in the King's mind remained fairly shapeless with no face, but being in front of the soul who would be the Paladin was like being with an old friend, someone who always knew how to laugh when he tripped over his feet.

"If there were a way to do it, I would," Aizen said with a deep sigh. "But such memories cannot stay repressed long. I should know. I've tried...so many, many times." He drew his hand down the troubled cheek to find it wet with tears shed from the depths of the man's nightmares.

"Well...what about not repressing them? Grimm's been fine since we did that memory transfer thing, and," He blushed deeply, shifting his foot against the floor. "we've been closer than ever now that I can see what he's seen."

"The...Memory Keeper!" Aizen groaned, this was why he needed his Paladin! Then he stood and with no warning went to the nearest wall and bashed his head into it several times. "How could I have been so stupid as to forget?! It's been less than a month! Oooh, I have been such a moron for so long—"

"WHOA! Stop that!" An invisible and spongy barrier sprung up between the butterfly and the wall as the King sprung forward and uncrossed his arms. "Not only is that bad for the wall, we need your noggin intact for the spell, don't we?"

"Shiro has the book and recipe," Aizen muttered, hand to his reddened forehead, but he didn't test the barrier. He already knew he'd bounce clear across the room.

"Then, I'll go get him, and the things we need, and you will stay here, be good and tend to your mate." The orangette turned to leave, only to look over his shoulder, "I fully expect him to be Marked as soon as he's not going insane, ne? The last thing any of us need is to have to chase you down because the two of you had a fight—don't tell me you two don't fight, all couples fight—and you can't find him because you haven't Marked him yet."

Famine drew himself up to his full height and sniffed. "Don't be ridiculous. Unmarked or not, I will never be unable to find my own mate, not now that the curse is lifted and I'm at full power. There is no place on earth where Famine and Death cannot reach," The honorific was added as an afterthought, "my liege."

"Yeah," Ichigo chuckled, "But I'm not the only one the Paladin can defy." He walked off to gather his brother, and the other three horsemen just in case, leaving the pair to their solitude for a while.

The butterfly simply sat on the edge of the bed, his bravado deflated at being reminded of just how special his key was out of the four of them, and stroked his mate's hair. The touch made Shinji whimper in his sleep, his brow furrowing and sweat making him clammy. So the brunette pulled away to mix the potion while he waited. It was the only thing that he could do to keep himself busy as everything else had to be done at the time of the spell-casting, because it was dependent on the runes the Mage would draw from the Ley Lines under the Shrine.