Disclaimer- I don't own Bleach

Chapter 8

The Way Things Were

The two walked in silence. The only sounds were of their feet as they walked and the crinkling of the plastic bags in their hands. Sayomi hadn't said a word since they had left the fireworks display. Kensei had asked her a few questions at the grocery store, but when all he got was a nod or shake of the head he stopped trying to get her to talk to him and left her to herself.

When they reached the barrier that surrounded the warehouse, Sayomi stopped and stared up at the empty space.

"You okay?" Kensei asked, pausing beside Sayomi and looking down at her.

She didn't look up to meet his eyes, but she did nod once.

"Come on," he said quietly, stepping through the barrier.

After watching him go Sayomi took a long slow breath and released it slowly before following after him. When she stepped into the warehouse there was a lot of shouting and arguing, it seemed that Kensei was supposed to have been back with food hours before.

"Sayomi," Hachi greeted, surprised. The large man was sitting against the wall, he had been watching everyone crowd around Kensei, but had sensed her walking through his barrier and had turned his attention to her. "It's good to see you."

Sayomi offered a wan smile. "You too, Hachi."

The noise in the warehouse quieted as everyone turned to Sayomi who was walking towards them to set the bags in her hands down. No one said anything as they watched her set the bags down on the table they were all gathered around.

Shinji stepped around Love so that he was standing beside Sayomi. He placed a hand on her shoulder when she wouldn't look up at him.

"Hey, I-"

"I don't want to hear it, Shinji," Sayomi cut in while staring pointedly down at the table.

"Welcome back, Sayomi," Rose said, reaching out to give her hand a brief squeeze.

"Yeah, welcome back, Sayomi," Love said.

"Welcome back," squealed Mashiro, grinning at Sayomi from across the table.

"Welcome back, Sayomi," Shinji echoed, squeezing her shoulder lightly.

"Can we eat yet?" Hiyori asked grumpily.

Lisa sighed, rolling eyes and muttering, "Classy," before raising her magazine once again.

"Hey, have you seen Sayomi, Mr Hat and Clogs?" Ichigo asked as he, Orihime, Chad, and Uryu stood before the shopkeeper in his large underground training room that now had a very large odd rectangular doorway in it.

"No, I'm sure she's fine though," Kisuke replied.

"I hope so, she disappeared so suddenly the other night," Orihime said.

It had previously been explained to her by Ichigo that Sayomi had been a Soul Reaper and that she had been around while he was training with Urahara. She and Chad hadn't known until then she was different from them and had thought she was human, they hadn't been very surprised to find that she wasn't, she had always had a fairly strange presence.

"Well, let's get this show on the road," Kisuke announced cheerfully.

After everything about the Dangai was explained and Kisuke rather forcefully ejected Ichigo's soul from his body, the gateway to the Soul Society was opened and the four friends ran into it accompanied by the black cat known as Yoruichi.

Pausing as she chopped up a block of drained tofu that she intended to use for miso soup, Sayomi looked out the doorway of the warehouse with a frown. Ichigo's reiatsu as well as Chad's, Orihime's, Uryu's, and Yoruichi's had all just suddenly vanished from her senses.

"What is it?" Kensei asked her, glancing at her as he cleaned a few fish filets.

She shook her head dismissively. "Nothing."

'Be careful and come home in one piece, all of you,' she thought as she went back to what she had been doing.

Kensei frowned at her but decided not to ask any more questions, he doubted he would get an answer.

Kensei was sitting in a dark corner of the upper most level of the warehouse. His head was tilted back and resting against the cool, smooth concrete and his eyes were closed. Everyone else, except for Sayomi who was still in her room, was gathered on the lower level. They weren't doing much just chatting or reading the day's paper while they ate a small breakfast of leftovers from the night before.

He heard the quiet sound of light footsteps and knew that Sayomi had left the confines of her room and had joined him on the dark upper floor. Her shoes made hardly any noise as she walked closer to him, her eyes having no trouble seeing him in the dark. There was a rustle of movement as she lowered herself carefully to the floor beside him.

"Can I ask you something?" She inquired quietly, lowering herself to the floor beside Kensei.

"You just did."

"When I left fifteen years ago, after I nearly killed Hiyori, why didn't you look for me?"

She didn't think she was going to get an answer and she had the distinct feeling that her presence was not wanted. With a quiet, shaky exhale she nodded in understanding and began to stand.

"I didn't think you wanted me to. You left without a single word, Sayomi. I thought you needed time to cool down, that you'd come back when you were ready. I didn't think you would disappear for nearly five years."

She bobbed her head, biting at her lips as she looked up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Kensei, for whatever it's worth."

"Don't worry about it," he replied blankly. "I always knew," he added quietly.

Not understanding what he meant, she turned towards him so she could see his face. His head was still tilted back against the wall, but his eyes were now open. "Knew what?"

"It was never me."

A full explanation wasn't needed, Sayomi understood what he meant without it. She took a shaky breath, her eyes blinking furiously as tears began to fill her eyes. "Kensei..."

"It's alright, Sayomi. I told you I knew things wouldn't be the same. I knew it fifteen years ago. Do you remember that day?"

"Vividly," she murmured. "You and I had a fight that morning. You were angry because I wanted to go to the old fields where the sakura trees grew. I would go there every year on the same day and every year on that day you and I fought. It was the day I had been told Byakuya had died. All I wanted to do was honor his memory, just like every year I would go and sit in the park on the far side of town, the one with Koi ponds, to remember my parents. I left without finishing our argument and when I came back you were ignoring me." Her eyes closed as she let her surroundings fade away only to be replaced with her memory of a day nearly fifteen years before.

She walked into the warehouse, her white hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a pair of black leggings under a loose black and white striped mini-dress. On her feet she wore a pair of black ballet flats that made little noise as she walked on the dusty pavement. Looking around she spotted Kensei pointedly ignoring her as he read over a magazine.

Sighing, Sayomi made her way to the hidden stairwell that would lead her to the large desert like room that lie beneath them. Once downstairs she jumped to the top of one of the large boulders before sitting cross legged with her hands in her lap and her head held high. She took in a deep, relaxing breath and let the now familiar world that Fuyukaze inhabited fill her mind.

Instead of being on a cloud high above the frigid windy mountains they sat in a little alcove in one of them, a small fire burning towards the edge of the little shelf that they sat in. An icy wind swirled the slowly falling snow, making little tornadoes out of the white flakes as they fell.

Sayomi leaned back against the cool rock of the mountain and looked over at Fuyukaze who was standing near the lip of their small hideaway. He was facing her as he leaned nonchalantly against the rocky wall, his face a blank, emotionless mask.

"You look tired, little one," he observed, his crystalline blue eyes glinting with concern.

"I don't understand, Fuyukaze.. Why is it so wrong for me to mourn for those I lost?" Sayomi asked sadly, bringing her knees towards her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"It isn't that you mourn for those you lost. I think in some way he feels you mourn for what you can no longer have and he feels he cannot make you happy when you yearn for something that he cannot give you," Fuyukaze replied.

"He does make me happy though."

"I know that, Sayomi-sama, but have you told him that? You two have always fought on this day, but neither one of you have ever tried to speak civilly about it."

"Well, it's hard to speak civilly to someone who's stubborn and won't listen because he's too busy yelling and trying to pop a vein in his forehead," Sayomi stated.

Fuyukaze smirked lightly at her and raised a white eyebrow. "Are you talking about you or your-"

"Oh shush, you know I meant Kensei," Sayomi retorted, shooting a poor attempt at a glare at him.

"I know, Sayomi, but you weren't exactly being easy to deal with. You usually aren't," he added under his breath while giving her a playful smile.

Sayomi glared at the beautiful man for a moment before shaking her head and sighing. "Yes, well, I may not be perfect but he has always known that. So he can either accept me as I am, past love and all, or he can find himself another girl to be overprotective of."

"He loves you, but you don't always make it easy on the poor boy. Talk to him."

"I know but-"

Sayomi's eyes flew open as she was jolted suddenly from her inner world back to the desert like room. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she stared up at the person who had so rudely interrupted her meditation.

"What the hell's yer deal?" Hiyori asked rudely as she stared down at Sayomi, her hands crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.

"Do you have a problem, Hiyori? I was busy," Sayomi spoke quietly but coldly.

"Yeah, I got a problem. You," Hiyori said while she drew her zanpakuto from its sheath that was strapped to her back.

Sayomi remained sitting where she was, her face was blank but her eyes seemed to take on a slightly whiter tint as they narrowed slightly. "Unless you have a death wish, I'd put that away."

Hiyori snorted. "I ain't scared of you. I'm gonna beat some sense into that pretty little head of yers. Kensei deserves someone better than your snobby ass."

A freezing wind stirred around Sayomi, whipping her ponytail around her as she stared coldly at the blond girl before her. "You shouldn't stick your nose in other people's business, it might get lost."

"I don't know what he sees in you, you're a stuck up wanna be noble who can't get over another stupid stuck up noble. You don't care about Kensei, you just want all the attention you can get."

The wind around Sayomi sped up slightly and clear, glimmering crystals of ice began to form in the air and on the dirt around her. "I suggest you learn to keep your mouth shut before I help you," Sayomi said.

"That noble ass is dead, get over it," Hiyori snapped. "You have someone who cares about you, but you don't give a shit! You're too busy whining and sulking like a little girl about a guy who wouldn't even marry you!"

There was a loud booming sound like thunder that echoed through the large chamber and the ground trembled, lose rocks tumbled and fell from their places to crash loudly onto the dirt floor.

Everyone that had been above in the warehouse felt the tremors and heard the violent crash instantly disappeared from where they had been to stand in a semi circle to the left of where Hiyori was picking herself up off the ground, wiping the blood that was trickling out of the corner of her mouth with her hand. She was glaring heatedly up at Sayomi, who was still perched on the boulder, her legs crossed and her face cold and indifferent.

"What the hell happened, Sayomi?" Kensei barked up at her.

Sayomi slowly moved her eyes from Hiyori to Kensei, who upon seeing the frosty sheen in her eyes frowned. "She wanted a fight, I showed her she's no match for me. I didn't even have to draw my zanpakuto. How disappointing," she said blankly.

Hiyori bristled at the insult and growled as she grabbed her zanpakuto from its spot beside her.

Sayomi scoffed as Hiyori charged wildly at her, there was an ear-splitting screech as metal met rock. Hiyori had sliced downwards at Sayomi, but instead of connecting with her target the white haired girl vanished and she struck the boulder she had been sitting on.

"You're slow," Sayomi taunted monotonously from the ground behind her.

"Knock this shit off," Kensei growled at Sayomi as he walked forward grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the stairs.

"Screw off, Kensei, I'm teaching your little wanna be princess a lesson," Hiyori yelled before leaping off the rock.

Sayomi didn't move as the blade of Hiyori's sword neared her. Instead she smirked and calmly raised a hand, grabbing the blade and twisting it out of her hands before tossing it aside like a toy. "You can't touch me, so let it go or I will kill you."

"That's what you think," Hiyori growled as the air around her head began to distort and a white substance began to coalesce and form a large rhinoceros mask with a single horn on the forehead.

"That's enough, Hiyori," Shinji said as he stepped forward and walked towards Hiyori.

"Butt out, baldy,"Hiyori shouted before slapping him with a sandal and retrieving her sword.

"Move," Sayomi ordered Kensei who was still gripping onto her arm.

"No, you're coming with me. This is stupid, Sayomi."

"In that case... Sorry, but this is going to hurt," Sayomi said.

Kensei scowled at her before she bent at the waist, twisting her hand from his grasp and shoving one palm into his stomach causing him to fly backwards a few feet before landing in a crouch.

"Now," Sayomi said calmly as she held her right arm out to her side, her bracelet jingling and sparkling in the light. "Breathe, Fuyukaze."

There was a gust of wind that rustled Sayomi's clothes and hair as her bracelet seemed to shatter into millions of tiny snowflakes that swirled around her wrist to collect in her raised hand. The flakes of ice formed a sword with the purest silver blade and a beautiful deep blue and silver hilt. Grasping the hilt of the sword lightly the blade of the sword was raised so that it was perpendicular to her body, the way she held it was as if the sword was an extension of her arm.

The eyes of several of the people watching narrowed and watched her cautiously, Shinji and Kensei both tried to take a step forward but were stopped when Sayomi brought her zanpakuto in front of herself. She loosened her grip on the hilt of the sword allowing it to to arc downwards in her hand, and with a light flip of her fingers, she spun the blade around her hand and re-grasped the hilt. A sharp, biting wind began to whisper around her and Hiyori, creating a circular barrier of wind between them and the seven others.

"They can't help you now," Sayomi said evenly.

"Like I need their help," Hiyori scoffed, her voice distorted through the mask that covered her face.

"This is ridiculous we have to stop this," Kensei shouted at Shinji.

"Let them be," Shinji said as he watched the brewing storm.

"You can't be-"

"They've never gotten along, let 'em fight it out. Hiyori needs to learn there is a reason why Sayomi was a captain and she wasn't. She also needs to learn that somethings can't be said without consequences," Shinji replied.

"Hiding behind your mask, you must be scared, Hiyori. I hadn't even called upon my zanpakuto yet," Sayomi taunted.

"Shut yer trap," Hiyori shouted before charging at Sayomi.

There were screeches of metal on metal and showers of sparks as the two girls fought inside the churning barrier of wind.

"Really, this is quite boring. If I wanted to play pretend with a useless twit I would have fought Shinji," Sayomi said as she dodged another blow from Hiyori effortlessly and with a look of boredom on her face.

"Hey," Shinji shouted. "That ain't very nice!"

Hiyori was panting slightly as she glared at Sayomi who hadn't even broken a visible sweat. "How many times do I have ta tell ya to shut yer damn mouth?"

"You're annoying," Sayomi said as she leapt over the blade of Hiyori's sword, flipping in the air and landing in a crouch right behind her. Hiyori's eyes widened just as Sayomi placed her hands on the ground and stuck her foot out behind her, landing a kick to the middle of Hiyori's back. The blond girl was thrown into the air and crashed into the flat side of a large boulder sending sprays of dirt into the air.

"Damn you, you'll pay for that," Hiyori yelled as she pulled herself from the rubble of the broken boulder.

Sayomi remained impassive as the girl shouted at her, "Are you just going to keep yelling or are you going to actually fight me?" she asked.

"Oh, I'll fight ya," Hiyori growled.

"Sayomi isn't taking this seriously," Lisa observed as she watched the white haired girl leap to the side to avoid an attack.

"That's a good thing remember, Sayomi scares me when she fights seriously," Kensei said.

Sayomi leapt aside as Hiyori's blade sliced through the air to the right of her face, she then raised her sword to block the attack that was now aimed for her stomach. Her eyes narrowed when she realized the blond girl was beginning to unleash more reiatsu and that the blade of her sword was slowly being pushed down.

"I ain't gonna lose to you," Hiyori said as she continued to push against Sayomi's sword.

"You don't have a choice," Sayomi replied as she grunted and pulled her sword downward, pushing Hiyori back and shallowly cutting her shoulder.

Hiyori immediately leapt back towards Sayomi who spun to her left, but that was what Hiyori had expected her to do. Sayomi bent backwards and tilted her head but she couldn't fully evade the blade of Hiyori's sword. She hissed as the tip of the blade glided over her cheek.

"Ain't so pretty now, are ya? That noble ass definitely wouldn't want you now," Hiyori jeered.

Sayomi had had enough, she felt the thin line of blood seeping from the cut to her right cheek and the warmth of her blood as it dripped from her chin and down her neck. She growled before disappearing in a flurry of white wind.

There was a collective gasp as Hiyori also disappeared from where she had been just seconds before. There was a loud crash and all eyes widened when they saw that Sayomi had pinned Hiyori to the sheer face a tall cliff, her hand tightly grasping the blond's neck while her sword was pressed against her throat.

"I've had enough of your disrespect, if you have something you want to say then say it now before I really do kill you," Sayomi hissed coldly as she removed her sword from the girl's neck, leaving a thin red line of blood where it had lightly brushed across her skin. She released her grip on Hiyori's neck as well, letting the girl fall to the ground.

Hiyori snorted and rolled her eyes. "I'll disrespect you as much as I feel like. You treat Kensei like crap, all you care about is that Kuchiki pretty boy that's nothin' but dust. The guy's dead, get over it. It's not like he actually planned on marrying you anyways, his family wouldn't let him. Isn't that the real reason the wedding was constantly put off? You weren't good enough for him, and ya ain't good enough for Kensei."

Sayomi's reiatsu flared and Hiyori gasped in surprise. "You shouldn't speak so disrespectfully of the dead," Sayomi said as her hand shot out, once again grabbing Hiyori by the throat and raising her off the ground.

"Shinji," Kensei shouted.

"I know. Let's go."

"He's dead it ain't like he can do anything about it," Hiyori snapped.

Sayomi's eyes narrowed and her reiatsu skyrocketed, causing what little air Hiyori had left in her lungs to be expelled in a quick breath. The zanpakuto she had still managed to hold on to dropped from her hands as Sayomi slammed the girl back in to the cliff and began to raise her zanpakuto. The hollow mask on Hiyori's face began to crack and fall to the ground in pieces as she raised her hands to try and pry Sayomi's hand from her throat. "No, but I can."

"That's enough," Kensei said as he appeared beside Sayomi, he had a hold of her right wrist while the others circled her, all their zanpakuto drawn and at her throat.

A bitter laugh escaped Sayomi's lips as she jerked her hand from Kensei's grasp and dropped a gasping Hiyori to the ground. She turned to Kensei and eyed him coldly before turning on her heel and walking away from the eight people who she had lived with for over eighty years.

"Sayomi," Kensei shouted after her.

She ignored him, instead opting to raise her zanpakuto out to her side. It shattered into a flurry of snowy flakes and swarmed around her wrist. There was a small flash as her silver bracelet reappeared and caught the artificial light of the basement.

"Sayomi," he shouted again.

She paused to look back at him briefly before facing forward again and disappearing, leaving only a few flakes of snow that floated in the air in her place.

Sayomi sighed when she blinked her eyes open to be greeted by the darkness she and Kensei sat in. "I shouldn't have left like that," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Silence fell over the both of them, the sounds of laughter from four floors below floated up to them and made the silence feel much more oppressive than it should have.

"She was right, you know? Hiyori," Sayomi spoke up, her eyes staring blankly ahead of her.

"I find that hard to believe," Kensei grumbled.

Sayomi offered an empty chuckle and nodded to the darkness. Kensei waited for her to explain what it was she meant, but when she didn't he looked over at her to see a glistening tear slip from her eye and down her cheek before dropping onto her shirt.

"She was wrong," he said, surprising her and causing her to look over at him. "About him. He-"

"I wasn't talking about Byakuya, Kensei," Sayomi cut in softly, looking away from his eyes while she reached for one of his hands that was folded over his chest. "You deserve better."

Taking the hand she had placed over his, he gave it a squeeze and sighed. "I know."

It took a moment for Sayomi to process what he said and when she did, she pulled her hand away and punched him in the arm. "You're an ass, Kensei." She was about to get up and walk away, but he tugged her back down and wrapped an arm around her before resting his chin on top of her head.

"It's in the past, Sayomi, leave it there. Things are different now."

"Yeah, they are," she murmured, relaxing against Kensei's chest.

"You gonna be alright?" He asked.

She thought over the question for several moments before sighing tiredly and nodded. "Yeah. Everything is just so mixed up. I don't know what to do, what to feel.. I still can't even fully comprehend the fact that Byakuya is alive and married. He was so cold, Kensei... His words hurt so much more than they should have and no matter how much I told myself that there was no reason to care what he thought any longer..." She trailed off and shook her head. "Things are much more complicated than they should be. Things were so much simpler before."

"Things have never been simple."

She laughed hollowly and nodded her agreement.

Rose strummed absently at his guitar and glanced up to the crumbling floor of the fourth level. Sayomi had been up there with Kensei for nearly an hour now and there hadn't been a single sound from either one of the two. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"You think they'll be alright?" Love asked, glancing up from the manga he was reading and noticing where Rose was staring.

The blond man sighed and stopped strumming at his guitar. "I don't know. I don't think things will be the same between them, but it's really not our business."

"They'll be alright," Shinji said, sidling up to the table and plopping into a chair, his eyes flicking towards the fourth floor.

"You know a lot of this could have been different if you hadn't lied, Shinji," Lisa pointed out, her nose buried in the latest swimsuit magazine.

"Sayomi never would have moved on if I hadn't. It's not like any of us liked watching her practically fade away. It was especially hard for Kensei. He never admitted it, but we all knew he had loved her since the day he met her. He was just too stubborn to do anything about it," Shinji replied.

"He wasn't stubborn, Shinji," Rose said. "She was with someone else and he didn't want to ruin the friendship they had, that was more important to him than telling her how he felt. Even after you told her Byakuya had passed away, he didn't want to ruin their friendship. That's why it was so hard for him to watch her every day. She was so lost. The poor thing lost so much, much more than any of us."

"They were good together though, weren't they," Love said.

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, they were. A bit annoying at times, but the two of them were good together when they finally both realized they cared about each other."

"Do you remember that day?" Rose asked, smiling at the memory. "It seems like so long ago, everything is so different now."

"Yeah, I remember," Shinji replied, nodding his head as his thoughts too were turned to the past.

Little did the group know that the minds of the two above were thinking about the same thing.

~A/N~

I'm tireded so I'm just going to say THANK YOU SO MUCH! to all of my lovely readers and reviewers. :)

It is now time to feed the review monster. Reviews are much appreciated!