A/N: Quick few things. Firstly, I know this story has been a handful and a half. Thank you for everyone who's read up to this point. This chapter is the climax, so everything will calm down past this point for the most part. Please do stick around till the end. I know this might feel like a conclusion, but It's not quite wrapped up, and there's things you won't want to miss(At least, I hope you don't)

Speaking of this chapter, it's really long. I thought about chopping it up, but... well, I didn't.

I believe I said that after this chapter, there would only be two left, but that's without an epilouge. So it may be two or three more. I'll let you know.

I practically listened to this chapters song on a loop while writing it. It matches the feelings I was trying to convey really well, so I suggest listening to it while reading.

Song: Jimmy Eat's World, '23'

This darkness is ours

xXx

"It was my turn to decide.
I knew this was our time.
No one else will have me like you do.
No one else will have me, only you.

You'll sit alone forever
if you wait for the right time.
What are you hoping for?
I'm here and now I'm ready.
Holding on tight.
Don't give away the end,
the one thing that stays mine."

Byakuya felt the kiss before anything else. Then came the tingling air of awareness and the throbbing sensation of desire. Next were hands, the hands of a man who made things happened, well worn and certain against his skin.

His squinting eyes broke through the seal of sleep, blinking as Ichigo came into view. He wore a drowsy, almost crooked grin. It was soft like the sun that filtered in through the white sheet tenting them.

With a sheet covering their heads like it did, all Byakuya could see was Ichigo and the sliver of bed that separated them. How nice it would be to live in a world this small, only big enough for them and their love.

Byakuya felt jealous of the light that played in Ichigo's unruly hair, the way it got to bath in someone even brighter than itself. He ran hands through the strands, and he did so without hesitation, as if it was his right. It was like walking, to do so, all he needed was to want it.

As if to verify this right, Ichigo sighed into the touch and shifted closer. Byakuya still couldn't believe it, that he'd been trusted with something so precious, that his hands were considered capable of holding the man who could stop and start worlds with only the good that lived in his heart. Ichigo had given him everything by simply giving himself, and Byakuya was sure he was unworthy.

His fingers mapped the dimensions of Ichigo's body with piety. His little grunts and sighs were Byakuya's gospel, their love his only religion. He laid his head at Ichigo's shrine.

Ichigo opened his eyes and parted his lips, and Byakuya knew that whatever came out of his mouth would be the word of god.

"You snore."

He never said his god was a very tactful one.

"And you know this. Please don't tell me that after only five years of marriage, you're running out of things to complain about."

He felt the stillness of arms settle around him, arms too plain to properly convey their worth. Those arms had changed world's. They had created a home and cradled a child. They brought a man back from the dead.

"No way, I have at least a decade's worth of more material."

Byakuya yawned, and Ichigo kissed it off his lips. He scrunched his face in dissent.

"I have morning breath, Ichigo."

"Didn't I tell you," Ichigo said, nipping at Byakuya's chin, "That's my turn on?"

Byakuya rolled his eyes and turned away from Ichigo. "It is much too earlier for your shenanigans."

Ichigo pulled him back with a fierce playfulness, burrowing his gracious mouth into the crook of Byakuya's neck. They both chuckled, speaking in half finished, muffled sentences that only they would understand or find worth laughing about.

A silence settled between them as a soft rain threatened to lull them back to sleep. Ichigo placed kisses that synced with the patterning droplets. He was Byakuya's rain king.

"Ichigo, why are we hiding under a sheet?"

"I want your undivided attention. If you couldn't tell, I'm coming on to you."

"Key word, trying" Byakuya said with a smirk.

Ichigo seemed to take that as a challenge, moving his hand to grasp the swell of Byakuya's bottom.

Byakuya moaned happily and asked, "Is that why you're so affectionate this morning? Usually you only have the strength to roll yourself out of bed. I'm lucky to get a simple hello."

"Exactly. I love Shion, but she doesn't give us much energy for this." He lapped at Byakuya's shoulder, baptizing him. "It's been too long," he whispered. "I miss touching you. And if I know our kid, she'll be waking up any minute now. She takes after you like that, always punctual."

"Really," Byakuya said, looking over his shoulder as much as Ichigo's insistence would allow. "And I thought she took after you. Always whining."

Ichigo tackled him onto his back, making Byakuya push into the futon with a fit of laughter.

"Are you going to keep insulting me or are you going to have sex with me."

Byakuya cupped Ichigo's face. "Can't I do both?" he asked teasingly, causing his husband to scowl beautifully.

He pulled Ichigo's face to his, taking his lips slowly before separating just enough to whisper, "Make love to me, Ichigo."

A knock came to door, jarring and demanding. Ichigo looked back to him with a rueful smile and said, "I think we're out of time, Byakuya."

xXx

Byakuya jolted awake in the way one might burst from a grave, gasping and confused, seeking redemption in the form of air.

Through his heavy breathing, he could hear a soft knocking.

"Yes?" he called out.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Lord Kuchiki," Fujita said at the other side of the door. "A summons has come from the elders. They would like for you to attend a meeting at noon today."

Byakuya's hands rattled uncontrollably like the chattering of frost bitten teeth. He brushed his fingers against his cheek, catching tears on their tips.

"Shall I confirm your attendance?" Fujita asked, worry evident in her voice.

Byakuya leveled himself and stiffened his spine in an act of impersonation. He was a child playing make believe with the darkness, dressing up as the confidently impassive person he wished he could be.

"Right. That will be fine."

Once she left, Byakuya sat, staring into the darkness, but it didn't stare back. It gave nothing in the way of stimulation, and it never asked for anything in return. There's was a loveless union, it as stuck with Byakuya as he was stuck with it, only greeting him with silence.

This was such an empty darkness that Byakuya thought he might lose his mind in it. Ever since Ichigo left a month ago, all there was was silence, silence that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of emphasizing what it took the place of.

Still, he did as he did everyday, played pretend. He lived life ignoring the surreal reality of it all, performing his daily activities as if there weren't giant holes in every part of his life. He lived his days in the way one might look at pictures with faces cut out of the frame, as if there weren't blank spaces beside him, as if something weren't missing.

He had no other choice, or perhaps he knew no other way to be, but either way, he couldn't let his feet get sucked down by this silence. He had to fake his way through this misery, because maybe if he pretended long enough that the silence was always there, he could trick his body out of the pain he felt every time he tried to breathe.

Byakuya got up from his futon and navigated through a dense fog of dissociation. He opened the doors to his deck and turned on the record player. Then he returned to his room and began to get dressed as the soft melody guided his movements. All too naturally, he forced himself to think of nothing but the next steps in his day.

As he placed his hairpiece, he heard the voice of a ghost.

"You really need to eat, Moonbeam."

Byakuya sighed, his fingers trembling around the fixture in his hand.

"Why are you here, Zangetsu?"

Byakuya had become a haunted house. In every corner of him, wherever he went, there was a chance a ghost might linger. This spirit seemed bound to him. He wouldn't let these bones rest in peace.

"Isn't it obvious," the spirit asked, coming to stand behind him, placing his chin on Byakuya's shoulder. "I love you."

Byakuya shook against the touch. This spirit was always walking through his walls, rattling his pipes.

"You love Senbonzakura."

"Yeah, well, there would be no Senbonzakura without you."

Byakuya struggled with the clasp of his hairpiece only to feel Zangetsu take it away and arrange it for him, mumbling something about how idiotic he considered them to be.

"You could argue that there would be no me without Senbonzakura."

The words made Byakuya realize there were two spirits haunting him. Zangetsu, the ghost of all the things he lost, and Senbonzakura, the ghost of who he use to be. They never changed, but he did. Years and rot had turned him into a condemned building.

"You're right when you say I love Senbonzakura. He says you're lonely."

'Haunted house are lonely places.'

"And he can't stand seeing you like that."

Byakuya moved away and stood by the entrance to the deck.

"And yet he can stand to see me tortured by your presence."

"He said you're less lonely when I come."

"He has always talked too much."

"I'm sorry about King. He should be here."

Byakuya wrapped his arms around his rapidly diminishing waist, feeding off of his own body heat. He didn't need anybody. His own warmth was enough for him.

"Ichigo shouldn't be anywhere he does not want to be. Besides, I can not say I blame him."

'Haunted house are frightening places. No one wants to live in one.'

"Please, go."

"I can't do that, Moonbeam. If Ichigo won't fulfill his duty than I'll do it for him."

"I am not his duty. Nor do I desire to be."

"I think it's everyone's duty to be there for the person they love."

Byakuya closed his eyes and let out a wistfully amused sigh. "That is such an Ichigo thing to say."

"Well, I am part of his soul."

"But you are not him."

"Yeah, you're right. I'm not..."

"When you are here, I wonder if I am losing my mind," Byakuya admitted. "Do you not understand, Zangetsu? I exerted all of my energy into resilience. There are days where I have to reteach myself how to breath without him, where getting out of bed is a victory. Something died between us," Byakuya whispered, his throat coiling with pressure he refused to let leak from his eyes. "And I am trying my hardest not to die with it. Why do you haunt me when all I ask for is peace in my grieving?"

Byakuya's whole body was tight and stymie like boarded up windows. He would let nothing in, and he would let nothing out. It might be haunted, but this was his house, god damn-it. These creaking walls and decaying floor panels belonged to only himself. They were the only things he had. He was the only thing he had, and he wouldn't let that be taken away from him too.

Zangetsus slipped his hand in Byakuyas, and it felt like a strong wind. He swayed at its presence.

"Don't you understand?" the spirit said "I can't be haunting you because what's between you and King ain't dead."

Before Byakuya could say anything, the spirit wisped him to the middle of the deck, lacing their fingers with one hand and holding their bodies together with another.

"Come on, Moonbeam, show me those moves I've heard about. Dance with me."

"Zangetsu-"

"Just one dance, then I'll leave ya alone. Deal?"

He couldn't keep the hardness of his face. These nuts and bolts that held him together, they began to loosen. In an attempt to hide his perishing groundwork, he rested his forehead against the spirits collar bone and allowed himself to be swayed back and forth, drifting like dust amidst a draft.

There was an agony he wanted to keep in dancing with Zangetsu. Everything about him was almost. His scent was almost identical to Ichigo's. His reiatsu was just barely off. The sound of his breathing, it was so close. Standing chest to chest with him, it was a lot like how his life had been this past month, nearly a perfect replica, but with inconsistencies he couldn't ignore.

Only, in a way, he had been able to ignore it, because without Ichigo there, he could create a world where he never existed, but now, holding a piece of Ichigo's soul in his hand, a piece so tauntingly almost yet not quite right at the same time, he couldn't pretend. He couldn't deny this heartbreak into non existence.

"He misses you, you know? He's a fucking wreck."

Byakuya wished he wouldn't talk, because he could feel it, the end seeping in through the cracks in his ceiling. The support beams were collapsing and the pipes were bursting within him. He was taking on water, letting out one last dying breath before he was nothing but a heap of days better seen.

"He's shut me out though. I can't even manifest in front of him anymore. I can do it with you though, for some reason. Soul lock, I guess. The only one he talks to is Senbonzakura, which says a lot. I think he doesn't talk to me because he hates himself right now."

Byakuya shook terribly against the spirit, eyes dripping with silent yet steady tears as he found himself forgetting how to breath again. So when Zangetsu's arms pulled him closer, holding tightly, he didn't protest the touch, but encouraged it with his own bracing grasp, knowing this was the closest to Ichigo he was going to get.

Then he lifted his head to kiss the spirit, and Zangetsu let him with still lips. It was short yet desperate. It was thrilling yet unsatisfying. It was taunting. It was almost like kissing Ichigo.

Byakuya pulled back and returned his head to Zangetsus collar bone, feeling too tired to be as ashamed as he knew he would eventually be. They stood there in a silent embrace for a long time, and all Byakuya could think about was what a pitiful pile of debris he was.

"You know," Zangetsu said, "I don't think I'm the one you should be kissing like that."

"I know."

"Did it make you feel better?"

Byakuya stepped from the spirits hold and preened his tousled hair before sitting on the deck in a lotus blossom position.

"It made me feel, feel many things that can not be put away so easily, things that will not help me fulfill my duties."

"You've been training and working to much, so maybe that's what you need then. King wouldn't like to see you like-"

"Well Ichigo is not here, is he?"

"But you want him to be."

"What I want really doesn't matter."

"But it does," Zangetsu said. "Because I know King. He won't be able to stay away from you, not for long. So the question is, will you be there when he finally gets his head out of his ass?"

It was a question he never considered, never thought he would have to. In many ways, he was still sure it was a question that would never deem an answer.

"I am not sure," he said bluntly.

"Well you better figure it out soon… Anyway I guess I should probably stop bothering you. I'll be back later."

"I suppose it would be a waste of breath to tell you not to bother, yes?"

"That depends, are you going to kiss me again?"

Byakuya tutted. "That was a moment of insanity that shall never be repeated."

Zangetsu walked to Byakuya and lifted his chin up with the pad of his fingertips. "Good," he countered, "Because I'm not so nice of a guy to not kiss you back next time. I just don't like taking advantage of pretty guys in vulnerable situations."

Byakuya held back on rolling his eyes until he felt the fingers on his chin dissipate.

He sat feeling nothing that could be easily described. There wasn't a numbness, but a sort've bareness as if he'd been splayed out on full display, now drained and somehow content in the aftermath.

He thought that perhaps it was time to stop playing hide and go seek from his problems and give Zangetsu's question some consideration.

xXx

Ichigo walked through mounds of snow, leaving proof of his existence in the form of foot prints. They would soon be covered.

Darkness swelled, but the snow, cold and shimmering, gave vigil to the frost garden as he walked. The flowers were encapsulated by tombs of ice, and yet their frail bodies never really died. They were simply preserved, hanging in patient reassurance that they'd be melted by the inevitable warmth of their master.

There was an ineffable air of life in waiting.

Ichigo recalled the words Senbonzakura said when he first came here.

'You seem surprised.'

'This wasn't what I expected Byakuya's inner world to look like. Rukia's yeah, but not his.

'It's not always like this, but in a way, it is. You see, a darkness always comes, like nightfall, and with it comes snow, but how long that darkness stays is dependent on my Master's state of mind. At his most content, there is still an hour of frosty night a day.'

'So it never leaves?'

'Yes. This cold darkness will always be apart of who he is, but likewise, no matter to what depths his misery grows, there will always be a time of warmth and light everyday. Neither dark nor light are ever eternal, Kurosaki-sama.'

Ichigo looked up, the flakes of snow falling like shooting stars against his face. 'It's still beautiful. Even while dark and cold.'

'That it is.'

Ichigo saw Senbonzakura knelt down in the snow, mask-less, his long hair whipping behind him. He approached the spirit slowly to see that he was rolling balls of snow on the ground.

"You don't get tired of being cold?"

Senbonzakura looked up from his task. If he was surprised to see Ichigo here, he didn't show it.

"I've gotten use to it over the years," he explained as he packed more snow onto the ball. "My armor helps." He looked back up to Ichigo, but only for a fleeting moment. "Your world isn't much better. It rains so much there that all you can do is close your eyes to it."

"Is that what you think I do? Close my eyes to it?"

Senbonzakura rolled his shoulder, seemingly impassive, but Ichigo knew there was more there. "I think the fact that you asked me that says that you already think that about yourself." He paused in his rolling and pressed his hands hard enough into the ball to create cracks in the snow. "Because of the climates within our respective worlds, we can not visit each other often. Like you can not stay here long, Zangetsu can not fare the cold either. Likewise, my armor makes it impossible to stand the wet humidity of your world," he said, and their glares met again, the subtext of the spirit's words weighing his eyes down."

Senbonzakura never had to be blatant for Ichigo to understand the depths of his words. Much like Byakuya, he spoke in nuances that one could only understand if they wanted to. Ichigo's gut lurched in guilt.

Ichigo knelt down beside the spirit and avoiding catching the spirits eyes as he wordlessly rolling another ball.

"Building a snowman?"

"Yes, Master use to do this with his Otou-Sama when he was still alive." He smiled grimly as he continued in his rolling. "He doesn't do this anymore, but I think that's only because he doesn't want to do it alone."

Ichigo said nothing. He just glared down at the snow he was packing between his hands and forced himself to focus on their red trembling sting, shying away from insistent thoughts on how lonely Byakuya must've been, on how lonely he was. For a while, neither said anything. This wasn't uncommon between them during his visits. Senbonzakura never asked why he was there, only waited for words Ichigo may or may not say, and he couldn't explain how grateful he was for that.

They got through the first two balls in silence. Ichigo moved to put his middle piece on Senbonzakura's bottom as the spirit worked on the head.

"I'm sorry," Ichigo said, making Senbonzakura pause his hands.

"For what, exactly?"

"That you and Zangetsu can't see each other. I never meant for you two to get hurt by this."

"That was inevitable."

Ichigo dropped to his knees beside the spirit, and he couldn't say if it was out of a want or a necessity. His legs felt so weak these days.

He watched as the spirit worked over the ball in a meticulous calm as he himself shifted in the snow. "Was it?" he asked.

"When you split an atom, Kurosaki-sama, what happens?"

"Really? We're going to do more metaphors today?"

"I will tell you," Senbonzakura said, giving him a stern glare. "Because an atom is a unit, the smallest unit, it does not simply split into two harmonious pieces. It explodes, causing a ripple effect that can be felt by everything around it." He held the perfectly round ball in his hands and gave Ichigo a meaningful look as he stood. "You and my Master, though you are both two individual people, the love you share is a unit, belonging to neither one of you. When you try to split it, the effects are bound to be disastrous for everyone around."

Senbonzakura's words shook him harder than the cold. He never thought other people had been affected by what transpired between Byakuya and himself. Had he been wrong? Was it just Senbonzakura and Zangetsu, or were there others too?

The spirit placed the head on the body of the snowman before retrieving some stones. He quickly created a face and then stepped back to observe his work with a small smile. "And who said beautiful things can not be made from cold places?"

Ichigo stayed knelt, hands pressed against knees, as he looked to Senbonzakura with the searching uncertainty of a child. "Is that why it hurts so much? Because it exploded?"

"What hurts?"

"Me! I mean, physically. I expected the emotional pain, but not this. I feel like someone's ripping at my chest twenty-four-seven."

Senbonzakura stood tall and stoic under the moon's coverage. He looked so much bigger like that, filled with wisdom that Ichigo found himself envious of. He then extended a sympathetic hand, and Ichigo took it, because those hands seemed so much more capable than his own.

As he stood in front of the spirit, Senbonzakura said, "Did you know one can die from a broken heart? And I don't mean in some figurative, poetic sense. Master read a book once from the World of the Living that wrote about a man who died a week after his lover. The technical terminology for it is... takotsubo cardiomyopathy, I believe. Anyway, this is when extreme stress can cause your heart to pump abnormally, and if not treated, can even lead to death." The spirit turned to regard the moon, hands folded behind his back. "You see, the soul and the body can not be separated from each other. If one is hurt, it often will transfer that pain over to the other, but it is even worse for you."

"Why?"

"Soul lock, of course. Think of soul lock as a limb," he explained. "If I were to yank on your arm hard enough, it would hurt badly, possibly even dislocate your shoulder. It would need to be treated for the pain to go away. If I were to yank with extreme force, I could even rip your arm off. However, if one acted quickly enough, the arm could be surgically reattached. Master and you, your soul lock has been yanked on. It is still there, but it needs to be treated or you may find that one day it is not."

"Does that mean Byakuya's hurting like this?"

"You already know the answer to that."

Ichigo's face harden, the frost catching in the crevices of his face. He wasn't sure what to say back, so he settled on silence.

"Is that why you come here?" Senbonzakura asked. "Because it ebbs the pain a bit?"

"I think it's the same reason I go to the lake where my Okaasan died. To mourn. To think about us, I guess."

Senbonzakura sighed, the cold highlighting it's release. "Kurosaki-sama," he said, "I will spare you anymore metaphors and simply say this. In this life, we lose many things because we don't take care of them or because we let the fact that we don't yet know how stop us from trying. The quickest way for something to die is by convincing yourself that there's nothing you can do to keep it alive. You should know this better than anybody, Savior."

Ichigo went to talk, but before he could, he heard, "Well look who it is." He turned to see Zangetsu wearing a livid smile, moving in frantic steps. "If we didn't have the same face, I might've forgotten what you looked like."

Ichigo tutted and turned away. "Don't be dramatic. It's only been a month."

"Yeah, only a month? Well a months a long time when your whole life's been turned upside down!"

Ichigo said nothing, just turned further away, but he didn't get far when he was shoved right into the snowman he and Senbonzakura had just made.

"Oh no you don't, King. You don't get to just walk away from me this times."

He managed to push himself into a sitting position and look up to the spirit that glared down on him with a griped fist.

"You know who I just saw, King? Moonbeam! But I bet you don't want to talk about that, huh? Wouldn't want to hear about the mess you left behind?"

"What the hell are you talking about," Ichigo raged, thrashing his arms. "I'm surrounded in it." He picked up a pile of snow and threw it at his sword spirit. "Do you think I don't know what this shit means?"

"What I think is that you don't care!"

"Don't care?" Ichigo whispered before jumping up. "Don't care?! You're one to talk, you just destroyed the snowman your lover made without a second thought."

"Kurosaki-sama," Senbonzakura interjected, "It is really no big dea-"

"No, It is!" Ichigo cut the spirit off. "It might just be a snowman, but you spent a lot of time making it. Who the hell just destroys something made by someone they love because their too thoughtless to know better?!"

Zangetsu chuckled and slow clapped in a mocking fashion. "Bravo," he said, twirling his arm in the air and bowing. "The King knows how to project his mistakes."

"You can project my fist," Ichigo muttered, stomping towards his sword spirit. There was something bizarrely gratifying about beating up someone who looked just like himself with his bare hands, but he left that thought to melt in the snow behind him.

Zangetsu looked just as ready to throw hands as Ichigo did, but before he could get within swinging distance, a barrage of pink separated them.

They both turned to look at a flushed and panting Senbonzakura, exerted not from exercise nor the cold, but from anger.

"You can both take your leave now."

It wasn't a suggestion.

"Senny-"

"Leave," the spirit pushed. "And don't come back until you've learned how to work through your issues in a less violent way. Both of you."

"Fine, I'll leave," Zangetsu said, practically spitting towards Ichigo. 'Because I actually care about my lover's happiness."

Ichigo scoffed as the spirit disappeared. He was left panting out his animosity.

"Senbonzakura, I'm… sorry."

"As you should be," the spirit said, not even looking over his shoulder to address Ichigo. "But words make for weak apologizes."

There was nothing Ichigo could say to that. Or rather, he had said enough. So he just stood there, thinking how painfully familiar that back turned away from him look before he returned to his body.

xXx

Byakuya was young when his father died, but not so young that he was spared from the memories and attachment that made dealing with life after his death unbearable.

There was a formal funeral held, followed by an insufferable string of events that made the day a bit too long for Byakuya's short temper. After the burial, they held a wake of sorts for Sōjun's true friends where none of the obligated nobility could take up extra space with their forced condolences.

He remembered so vividly Jūshirō and Kyōraku, two of his father's closest companions, memorializing Sōjun with humorous stories and moistened eyes. He remembered thinking that they looked like novice actors who couldn't quite fake happiness, but in hindsight, his thoughts on their behavior said more about his emotional intellect than it did theirs.

He'd spend so much of his life labeling his emotions and sorting them away that he didn't understand their complexity. He didn't comprehend that sometimes there was no comprehending, that emotions were much too abstract of a thing to be understood fully. They certainly couldn't be filed away like mere paperwork to be dealt with at a later date.

You see, when mourning his father, Jūshirō and Kyōraku did so by celebrating his life, accepting the bitter sweetness in doing so. They let their emotions flow, realizing that they were a package deal. They did not shy away from one out of fear of the other.

They knew something that Byakuya had yet to grasp, and that was that when you try to bury emotions, they bury you. He had been filled with so much sorrow and anger that he didn't know what to do with it all other than push it deep down inside of him. He wanted to take all of his father's pictures off the wall, torch the gardens, throw away all of his paintings, destroy all the parts of his father death didn't take with it so he might be able to step into shoes his feet were not yet big enough to wear. Because the biggest weight his father left behind was his position in the family, and that took up too much space for Byakuya to be crying over momentous and flower beds.

Only he soon realized that you could bury personals items, but you could never bury memories. So to combat those, he kept constantly busy, never letting his mind go ideal out of fear of what it might do with that extra time.

He had always been this way, but he never really perfect it, because he had buried these emotions in the backyard of his soul. He could never escape the fact that these remains of himself slept right under his feet.

This is what he thought about as he and Artemis sat by a lake in the Hokutan, one him and Ichigo often trained at. He thought about Jūshirō and Kyōraku, the way they treated the memories of dead loved ones as if they were worth the pain. For years, he had grappled with this notion. He thought that, maybe if he didn't have the whole well being of his clan and all it represented on his ability to stay centered, then maybe he could be as they were, but he knew even a clan leader was like any other soul in the privacy of their own time. He knew he used his position as an excuse.

Looking back on it, he wouldn't erase his time with Hisana nor his father, and he most certainly wouldn't do so with Ichigo, because when with him, Byakuya was the happiest he had been since childhood. When Byakuya was with him, he was at his best. Loving Ichigo was proof that there was still life in him yet.

Could he be happy with the ghost of what they had? Was there such a thing as a beautiful haunting? Or was what Zangetsu said true? Did what they create still have breath in it? It hurt to even think about, but Byakuya was already hurting, so he might as well give it his all.

Apart of him wanted to take Ichigo at face value, believe his words about Byakuya's nobility being too much to share. Apart of him knew there was more to it than that, and was angry at himself for being so easy to scar, angry at himself for not believing for the both of them when Ichigo had done that exact thing so many times. Almost all of him was sure this would end in pain. But wasn't that what Ichigo taught him? That if there was even the littlest amount of hope, it was worth all the painful possibilities?

For the first time since Ichigo left, he considered this, but nothing came of it, not yet anyway. He supposed it was his own fault for wasting a month's worth breathing space by trying to only inhale.

He petted Artemis who laid lifelessly against his leg. She had been without much spirit this past month, and Byakuya wondered if that was because she could sense his own misery or if she missed Ichigo as well. It was probably a bit of both.

Amidst his contemplating, Byakuya fell asleep against a magnolia tree. He was later awaken by the protective growl of Artemis, signaling him to take up a combative stance. He used his echolocator to scan the area as he opened up his senses, and for a few seconds, he heard nothing but the wind.

Suddenly, the entirety of the enclosure was filled by a smoke that made his ear's buzz.

'What is this? Kidou? They are using this odd smoke to negate my hearing and echolocation ability. Smart, but still useless.'

An Image appeared in his mind from his connection with Artemis that depicted five slowly advancing figures surrounding the perimeter of the smoke.

Byakuya let out a bothered sigh as he held out a finger and said, "Hado number four." He spun, creating a circle of lighting, and soon after, he could feel the five pressures decline to one.

This confused him until he recalled a bit of information he learned while investigating the bombing. Kato, the young officer who instigated a fight with Ichigo months ago, had the ability to manifest copies of himself. Unlike Shinji's and Aizen's zanpakuto, these weren't mere illusions, but actual replicas of himself. For a shikai, it was quite powerful if used correctly.

As the smoke reseeded, he used his echolocator to see the figure he sense to be Kato writhing on the ground. He walked towards him and placed a binding spell.

"Silly boy," he said, "you had real potential, only to waste it on fruitless attempts to stop an inevitable peace treaty. Why?"

Kato grunted and pushed uselessly against his bindings. "A guy like you wouldn't get it."

"Well, you have already dug your grave, so it doesn't-" Byakuya stopped mid sentence at the feeling of two pressures approaching him from behind. He spun again, releasing another hado while Kato let out a pleading scream. Only it was too late, the spell had already hit it's mark.

He had used non lethal means, but when he could finally see the prone outline for what it was, he knew that wasn't the problem. He shunpo to the woman and dropped to his knees, placing hands over her pregnant belly frantically.

"Kuchiki Taichou, we both know that won't work."

"Hush," he barked, not liking the way she spoke of her child's death in such a calm way, as if she had expected it from the beginning. Only, he knew she was right. Because of their lack of a physical body until birth, the reiatsu of a fetus is extremely unstable, and although the mother's body offered protection, it couldn't stop the chaos caused by a kidou blast. Even if she was treated by a master of kaidou in the exact moments following the attack, the likelihood of the child's survival was little to none. Still, even as he felt the last tendrils of that budding reiatsu dwindle beneath his palms, he continued in his pointless attempts.

"Why?" he demanded, still pouring energy into the woman's bloated stomach. "Why did you come here in this condition?"

He should've realized. He should've noticed the discrepancies in strength between the two reiatsus. This was what he had feared, clumsily yielding such great power, but he had grown cocky, thinking he had overcame his blindness fully. How could he have let this happen?

"Not to hurt you, Kuchiki Taichou. Kato… he's my husband, you see. If someone you loved was about to jump off a bridge, wouldn't you try to talk them down?"

Byakuya wasn't sure what he wanted to hear, but it wasn't that.

He continued to flood the woman with his power even as he both felt and heard the last shallow pulse of the child's reiatsu beat against his hands, hands he had used to take the life of an innocent.

Thoughts of holding Arisa in his arms for one precious moment grasped him. He remembered the way she dissipated out of existence as if she had never even been there at all. He remembered Hisana's cries, and their corpse-less funeral, and the way that, from that day on, whenever they were together, they'd both just stare silently out of windows, never having words that mattered enough to say. He remembered this not with just his mind but his whole body. He felt that loss everywhere.

His hands went from her stomach to the ground, and all he could feel was death on his palms. He tried to speak, but none of his thoughts could be formed into anything that would remotely make this situation better. None of them would make her child less dead. None of them would make that any less his fault. All he could do was remove from her the hands that just destroyed her life.

He laid them flat against the earth. Hands, unless hands that ruined anything they touched.

Kato had wrestled from his bindings with nothing but the strength of a husbands love, and Byakuya neither made a sound nor moved a muscle as they exchanged words beside him. He wasn't sure he could even if he wanted to.

"Emiri, I'm… I'm so sorry," Kato cried, and Byakuya almost wanted to yell at him to stop apologizing, because there was only one person at fault here.

"I guess it was too much to hope for us, huh?"

"Emiri, don't-"

"After the war, when we found out I was pregnant, I thought that maybe we could move on from Hana's death," she said, tears clouding her voice. "But all you cared about was revenge. I was angry too, but… I thought the love of a new child could scrub away all the anger we harbored from losing our last. I guess it did, for me, at least. But now she is gone, and you'll be imprisoned, and all that is left is anger."

Kato let out a roar of sobs that clapped like thunder in Byakuya's ears, and yet he listened in an act of repentance as the man pushed out broken apologizes through the strain of heaving breaths.

"I….I'm sorry. I ruined us. I'm...I."

"Shh, you didn't ruin us," the woman said, a sweet sadness in her voice. "The war did."

"But I- Emiri, what are you doing?! Stop!"

Byakuya felt Emiris reiatsu surge into a self inflicted kidou blast followed by the splattering of blood against his face. Any trace of Emiris life vanished between the two men, leaving nothing but a silence, the most horrible silence Byakuya had ever heard.

xXx

Ichigo stood on a rooftop observing the town he grew up in through the obscurity of shadows. It felt so different, somehow far away, and Ichigo knew it wasn't the town that changed, but himself.

'I wonder how Byakuya's doing?'

He leaned away from that thought and instead grabbed his zanpokuto as if expecting a hollow disturbance at any second. He felt an almost want for danger. Something to stick his sword through. A justification for his presence here.

In his peripheral, he saw Karin in her soul form as she landed gently at his side. She looked out into the night with a determination that didn't sit well on her face. She was too young to have such willful eyes. She hadn't earned it, and he hopped she never did.

"What are you doing here?"

Her face didn't flinch. She showed neither petulance nor annoyance as she had done expectantly so many times before. Instead, there was merely a consideration that was too heavy for her age.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

Ichigo looked more closely at her, thinking that she looked older in ways he couldn't explain. It wasn't something to be seen in her physical appearance, but within her gait. It was in the way she held herself as if she had everything to lose. It was in the evenness of her words and the intensity of how she said them. It rolled off of her like a smoke you couldn't help but to breath in.

"I'm your Nii-san. I'm here to help protect you. Is that not a good enough reason?"

"It would be if we needed you to protect us."

"You do. You… just don't see it yet. You don't want these powers, Karin. They're a lot to carry."

"Bullshit."

"Karin!"

She turned to him, arms crossed and stance unwavering, looking taller than she was. "Do you wanna know what I think? I think you want Yuzu and me to stay weak so you can always be the protector. I think you wouldn't even know what to do without it."

"Kar-"

"I'm not finished," she hissed. "We don't mind you coming back. No one minds it, but if you're going to come back, do it because you miss us, not because you're using us as an excuse- And don't even think of denying it, because that's exactly what you're doing. Yuzu may let you get away with that stuff, but neither of us are as incompetent as your protection makes us feel."

"I'm sorry if protecting you made you feel incompetent, but I rather you feel that way and be alive then feel capable and be dead."

"Look around, Ichigo," she said, waving her hand across the darkened horizon. "This isn't exactly a war zone, and if you didn't notice, we were doing fine without you here. We don't need you anymore."

"Oh yeah, and who does?"

"No one!" she snapped, shocking Ichigo with the sudden truth of it all. "And that's something you need to figure out a way to get over, because people do want you. We want you to visit. So do your friends. I'm sure that Byakuya guy wants you."

Ichigo's hard glare wavered like a grudge he couldn't keep. He looked off the side of the building, finding more strength in the distant flickering of street lights than the eyes of his own sister.

"How do you know about Byakuya?"

"People talk. I listen." She scoffed. "Urahara-san, Ishida-san even pops, they all know. The only ones who don't know you two are together are you two."

There were as many ways as there were stars for him to contest it, but he didn't. He wouldn't say him and Byakuya, whatever they were, never exited. He wouldn't say that it still didn't.

"I guess you're not really a kid anymore, huh?"

"I don't think I've been for a while."

He observed Karin again, looking at her as if he might see things he missed the first time, things that accounted for this maturity she had slipped into as if she was simply putting on a pair of shoes. He was backpedaling, trying to pinpoint the moment she outgrew her youth, trying to figure out how he'd missed it. He guessed, looking back on things, he had missed a lot.

Ichigo went to speak, but he was cut off again by what he was starting to think was years worth of words she had been keeping tightly under her tongue.

"And the way you've been treating Yuzu, turning her down every time she wants to go patrolling with you, you have to stop. She just wants you to be proud of her. Do you think that it was easy for her, being the ordinary one?"

"Yuzu was always extraordinary," Ichigo argued. "She kept the family together after okaasan died."

"Exactly," Karin snapped, "Then how do you think I felt? Yuzu was keeping us together at home while you were out saving the world. But me? I was just there. Useless."

In that moment, looking at Karin, hair whirling around her face and sword strapped to her back, dressed and ready as if she had had the uniform this whole time, just needing an excuse to break it out, it became clear to Ichigo that the shoes she had slipped into were the ones she'd been waiting for him to take off, and by coming back with arrogant declaration of protection, he was stepping on her feet.

He was starting to understand what Senbonzakura meant. This thing between him and Byakuya, it effected his whole family in someway.

"I never realized you felt that way," he said lowly.

"Of course you didn't. Poor you, always being so burdened by your heroism that you never stopped to think about what it's like to be the family of a hero. Cry me a river, Ichigo. As hard as it was on you, it was still something you chose. The rest of us didn't get to choose to be weak." There was a crackling sound that could only mean a hollow was near. Kairn removed her zanpakuto, and Ichigo just watched as she did so, not wanting to insult her anymore by giving into the brotherly instinct that told him to fight in her place. "But it's my turn. I'm going to protect the family, or at the very least, myself. You put in your time. You don't have to be the protector anymore."

She jumped on the ledge and looked out into the veiled trouble that was Kurakura, carrying her sword with the weight of a promise, a promise that she was ready.

Before she leaped into the fullness of her new found adulthood, she said, "Go home, Ichigo. Be happy, that's all we need from you."

xXx

The next day, Ichigo was knelt on the patchwork grass in front of his mother grave. He wasn't sure how he got there. He just walked, and when he finally looked up, there he was.

It wasn't as if he was searching for something, but waiting for something to find him. He waiting for a reason to stay, or perhaps, even more so, he was waiting for some moment where he could finally admit it was time to go.

It was time to go.

For a while, he said nothing to his mothers grave. There was no need for a prelude or words at all. He knew she couldn't hear him, but there was a comfort in knowing that even while that hollow took her body and soul, it could never take his memories of her.

"When Karin told me to go home, all I thought about was Byakuya. He's the first person that's felt like home to me since you," he said, and somehow, that truth felt like both his biggest burden and his greatest security.

"So is that why you're running away?"

Ichigo turned to see his dad smoking a cigarette and wearing a somber expression that he reserved for moments of life or death. He wondered which kind of moment this was.

"Pops, what are you doing here?" He asked, standing.

He took a drag while looking up to a cluster of storm clouds slowly ascending upon the sky.

"That Fujita woman came looking for you at the house."

"Fujita-san? Why? Is something wrong?"

Isshin shrugged a shoulder. "Probably, but I guess you'd have to go back to figure that out."

Ichigo knew his dad well enough to know when he wanted to say something, and he knew himself well enough to know it was probably better that he listened.

For a while, he just stood taking long drags, savoring each one. "After she died, I never thought about being with someone else. Never had the urge to really," Isshin finally said, speaking casually as if he was just making insignificant chatter. "But sometimes I thought, what if I did? Would I even be able to?"

Ichigo didn't say anything. Knowing his dad, with enough time, he would give the wisdom that he knew Ichigo was too proud to ask for. Instead, he stood as the inception of a rain storm drizzled against his skin, not carrying to shield himself from the droplets.

"We got thrown into this situation together, but it turned into love. We were lucky." He pulled out a small silver case and extinguished the half finished cigarette against the metal, saying "I've been alive for longer than I think you or the girls care to realize, and I'll tell you this, real love is hard to come by."

He paused for a long time again, such a long time that Ichigo thought that he might be done. He just looked blankly towards the grave as if considering a lifetime's worth of mistakes, weighing each one out individually for it's worth.

"But damn," he finally said, "when she died, it hurt more than anything had in my long life. I'd do it again though. I think pain is our way of atoning for happiness. You can't get something without giving, ya know? But when it's right, it's worth all the pain in the world. Besides, being lonely is a hell in itself. If you're going to go through hell anyway, might as well do it with someone else. Just a thought, really." He shrugged a shoulder before placing the case back in his coat pocket. Ichigo would always remember the words he said next. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, son."

Sometimes Ichigo's thoughts were in a language dead to him, making them impossible to translate, but Isshin had this way about him, this fluency of which he read his son. He had a way about him where he could decipher those coded thoughts and break them down in a way Ichigo could comprehend with perfect clarity. Maybe it was a dad thing, or perhaps, Ichigo's lines had always been that easy to read through, but whatever the reason, he was glad for it.

'Don't make this harder than his has to be, son.' It was so ridiculous how his father could condense months of confusion to pure meaninglessness with just a few offhandedly spoken words. But that was the problem all along, wasn't it? He was being ridiculous by complicating something so simple. Stripped to it's barest of importance, hearing that was like being talked down to and realizing how stupid you really were. He loved Byakuya, and that was all that mattered. That was all that should have ever matter.

He wouldn't say he wasn't still scared. He had always been, and that was just the truth. In reality, he feared all the things he could both gain and lose from being with Byakuya more than he feared any of his previous battles. There was no weapon for this, no three day training regimen, and very little if any comfort to be found. He needed a whole knew set of skills, but what he was lacking had never stopped him before. If it had, all the fear that drove him to fight wouldn't of been just fears anymore.

Damp and standing in a field of loved ones lost, he realized the irony in it all. He realized in his fear of losing Byakuya, he lost him anyway.

"Oh, and son," Isshin said as he started to walk away. "I'm kicking you out. It's time for you to stop hiding in my nest and go build one of your own."

Ichigo gaped towards a retreating Isshin before letting out a short, humored chuckle. "Thank's pops," he said under his breath.

'I've been an idiot. Worst than an idiot. But I'm going to fix it. I need to go see Byakuya now.'

Ichigo started towards town with the full intention of catching the first gate he could back to Byakuya, but he was soon cut off by a manifested Zangetsu.

"Really? That's all it took? Sen's been giving you advice and I call you stupid just about every chance I get, but one five minute conversation with your old man, and you're good to go?"

He wasn't quite sure why either, but that didn't matter. He just knew that, when it clicked, it really clicked. All the lights came up, and there he was, just him and a truth he couldn't not see.

"Are you complaining?"

"Nah, I always knew you'd come around. I think you did too from the moment you left Moonbeam. You just needed someone to tell you that your shit was getting old."

"I guess I did." Ichigo dipped his head shamefully and said, "Zangetsu..."

"Don't give me that pitiful look, King. All's forgiven. We have more serious things to deal with than one of our stupid fights."

"What's going on? I was just about to go find Byakuya."

"That's why I'm here," he said with a stony expression. "If you want to find Moonbeam, you'll need to come to his Inner world. King, he's not okay."

xXx

Zangetsu abridged the last couple of days for Ichigo. After Kato's attack and the subsequent death of his child and the suicide of his wife, Byakuya had gone on as he always did.

Like the perfect clan head he was, he went through the mandatory investigation, giving his full cooperation. He answered all the questions with an unshaken professionalism and promptly wrote a thorough incident report. Afterwards, he filed for a sick leave with his clan and temporarily passed over his duties before doing the same with his division, delegating everything to Nel. Then and only then did he retreat to his inner world, and for the last twelve hours, he had refused to come out. Leave it to Byakuya Kuchiki to micromanage his own mental breakdown

He hadn't even entrusted Fujita with his plans, but instead, he told told her that he was ill and to not disturb nor worry about him. Of course, after several hours of no eating or contact, being the motherly woman she was, Fujita involved the clan doctor who was calling the internal retreat a semi catatonic state. Although he was unsure of how involuntary it was since Byakuya had took the time to prepare for his absence. More accurately, it was a mental health day, a determined one. In the end, he concluded there was nothing to worry about, saying he would come out soon and, at least physically, be okay. He said that maybe he needed to be in there, and to just leave him be. Only that wasn't something Ichigo could do. Not now. Not anymore.

Ichigo knew that Byakuya would come out on his own with no goading. A man like him didn't know how to stay down. He always had something greater than himself to stand back up for. Ichigo knew that Byakuya didn't need him, but he also knew that he wanted him, and even more importantly, Ichigo wanted Byakuya. He wanted to ease Byakuya's loneliness, to be the hand he reached for in the storm. He wanted him to know that this was one hole he didn't have to crawl out of alone. This darkness was theirs.

Byakuya's inner world was both colder and darker if at all possible. The steady snowfall had turned into a blinding blizzard, merciless in its hunger. Nothing could escape, nothing could survive.

Zangetsu pointed out Senbonzakura who stood pensively by a frozen lake. They flashed over to him, and the smile that stretched across the Samurai's face stood in stark contrast to the frosted backdrop of sorrow that surrounded them.

The spirit smiled as if Ichigo was the first peak of sunlight he'd seen in days, as If Ichigo was his only hope. He smiled at him as if he was Atlas, carrier of world's, never doubting the strength of Ichigo's shoulders. They had been molded to melt this snow.

Since the first time Ichigo realized he was in love with Byakuya, he was prepared to hold that smile and all the trust that came with it. He wouldn't leave without him.

"Where is he?"

"There's an alcove behind that waterfall that he's been resting in."

"Right," Ichigo said with a nod. "Don't worry, Senbonzakura. I won't leave here without him."

"I know," he said, taking Zangetsu's hand. "I can see it in your eyes."

The minuscule distance between the edge of the lake and the crystallized falls were like miles when up against shrill winds and the aura of pure loneliness that could be felt in every flake of snow. Once arrived, he saw that the thick ice stood like a wall separating him from Byakuya, and with only the moon's illumination, Ichigo was unsure of how to get in. He pushed out just a hint of his reaitsu for a source of light, but several icicles dissipated at it's fervor, creating a slim opening for Ichigo to shimmy through.

He had to hunch down once in the small two person cavern. On his side, Byakuya laid facing a wall made of stone, stone the color of numbness, gray with ice pendants hanging from it's grooves. Even in his bed of frost, the noble did not tremble, perhaps for the same reasons the snow did not tremble, because all the cold emanated from him.

Ichigo didn't speak, but instead, he laid down beside the noble and wrapped an arm around his thinning form. He could tell Byakuya hadn't lost that much weight, but like in the way Karin had changed, his deterioration was something more to be sensed than seen. Here in this hollow, he felt like a husk of himself, like an animal that hid away to die alone. To many, it would make sense. A lonely life and a lonely death, but Ichigo knew better. There was a resilience in him, a part that didn't know when to say when. He just needed to be reminded of it.

"You came."

There was something different about Byakuya's voice, only not different at all. It felt of nostalgia, a sound he had been away from for too long.

"Yeah, I came."

"Why?"

Suspicion set in like hypothermia, stiffening his muscles, and Ichigo pulled him in closer, refusing to let the cold have it's way.

"Don't you remember what I said the night of the bombing? I'll always chase in after you."

"But I pushed you away. I don't deserve-"

"And I shouldn't of walked away," Ichigo said, lacing their fingers together. "But that doesn't matter anymore. I'm here now, and if you want to bury yourself in this snow, then you'll have to bury me too."

Byakuya's fingers tightened around his own, but his whole body felt condensed, holding back more than the burden of breathing.

Ichigo tilted his head and placed purposeful kisses around the edges of Byakuya's ear. He trembled in warning like the foreboding signals of an avalanche. "Byakuya," Ichigo whispered in his ear, "I'm here. Let go."

Cracked breaths sputtered out of Byakuya, as if he was choking on all the snow he had let build up inside of him. "It is because you're here," Byakuya said through throbbing puffs of air. "I did not want you, anyone, to see me in this state, but especially you."

Ichigo gently turned Byakuya onto his back, keeping their fingers nitted on either side of the noble's head. The moon's light bounced off the ice, and Byakuya glowed in it's rays. His eyes were closed and his lips quivered in a fright. This was the first time Ichigo had seen him afraid of anything. "You're one of the strongest men I know, Byakuya," Ichigo said, pressing his lips on the lid's of Byakuya's eyes, coaxing him open with soft, traveling nips of his skin. "Don't close your eyes to me."

His eyes budge open, pushing through apprehension to reveal the darkest blue, tears dripping from their pull. Salty and black like the sea's abyss, this was the depths of his sorrow.

Ichigo placed more kisses along Byakuya's face, from the bridge of his nose to the peak of his cheeks, picking up his sadness and draining his tears, validating them with warmth, giving them a home on his lips. "Why did you come here?" He asked. "So you wouldn't burden anyone? I thought you'd know better than that by now."

Byakuya's eye grew smaller, as if seeking shelter. His iris shook under that shade. "I deserve this solitude," he protested. "I destroyed a life. I was arrogant, thinking I had overcame the limitations of my blindness, and what is worse it that my actions were not deemed punishable. This is the only repentance I could find."

"You made a mistake, Byakuya."

"I am, at times, baffled by the limitations of our language. The word mistake does not begin to convey the magnitude of my actions. I took the life of an unborn child, but not just any unborn child, a child who had reached full sentience, who recognized the voice of it's okkaasan and reveled in her warmth. I do not deserve such warmth. I…"

"Byakuya," Ichigo whispered, gripping tighter their hands, "staying here won't make up for what happened. Only living with it will, learning from it, and you will, because you're strong. And when you don't feel strong, you can borrow strength from me."

Byakuya's eyes opened fully to him now, scavenging every inch of his face as if keeping them for later, making Ichigo realize that this was the first time Byakuya had ever really seen him since the war. He had always wondered how Byakuya would look at him if he could. There were many times he considered the possibility, but it hadn't prepared him for what he saw behind those eyes. Watching Byakuya watch him felt like realizing what love looked like for the first time.

"Alright. I suppose it is time for me to come out now."

"And I'll be right behind you. I promise."

"Does this mean... you are coming back to Soul Society?"

Ichigo ran a thumb over Byakuya's bottom lip, his eye's following the finger as it did so. "Where else would I be? That's my home."

"Ichigo," Byakuya whispered, saying his name like a request, one he granted in the form of a deep kiss.

As their lips moved against each others with certainty, Ichigo felt a heat grow beneath their palms and spread through the tiny breaches of their loosely bound hands. Specks of light found its way in and the ice started to drip, thawing rapidly as their kiss intensified. With the incandescent devotion of their touches, they brought back the sun.

All around them, the world began to melt.

xXx

Suma Akila: Thank you for your comment! The sad parts should be pretty much over from now till the end.

Tifanny91: As stupid as those two were last chapter, I didn't want to drag you guys around anymore. So here we are.

Darklight14: You're lovely. Thank you dear. Those two are pretty ridiclious, but it's apart of what I love about them.

M3gan15x: And you are lovely too. :) A bit of their extraness is my fault, but I just can't help it. Thank you! Hope you enjoyed this chapter.