"Sad Shun" AU RP Part Three - Ukitake (Incomplete)
Private RP based on a concept by clanoftheraven , who also plays all characters other than Shunsui. Originally written in Google Docs, copied here for convenience and to remind me that I really need to get back to this and finish it, even if I am sad-avoidant XDUkitake had been transferred to one of the long-term care wards after it had become clear that this bout of illness was severe. It wasn’t the first time he was placed there--Unohana usually transferred any patient who was likely to be in Fourth longer than a week into long-term care. The rooms had a more comfortable, permanent feel, painted in soft pastels, with a few simple pieces of furniture and a cushioned chair that could be reclined into a cot if necessary. Ukitake’s room was painted in a soft blue, and had a view overlooking the gardens of Fourth.
Not that Ukitake was lucid enough to admire the view at the moment.
When Unohana had a captain as a patient, she always put a supressing kidou barrier up around their room, to prevent reiatsu from leaking all over the healing wing and distressing the healers. At the moment, though, it was hardly necessary--Ukitake’s usually powerful reiatsu was at a mere fraction of its normal levels, and Sogyo no Kotowari were sleepy and quiet. Ukitake himself was pale and still; he had lost weight, making the dark circles under his eyes far too prounounced. His skin was ash-pale, damp, and far too warm, although he was shaking as if he were desperately cold. The only sound in the room was the whooshing of the ventilator as it pumped air in and out of Ukitake’s lungs since he grew too weak to breathe for himself.
Jyuushirou was in a bizarre state composed of half dream and half his inner landscape. Memories and dreams combined with conversations with Sogyo no Kotowari, blended with visits to his bedside that might have been real and might not.
He knew he was dying. His death wasn’t a new idea to him; he’d known he was fighting the odds ever since he was a boy. He had struggled and fought through attack after attack; he wasn’t one to give up on life. Each day was something he had to fight for--and if he managed to live another day, Jyuushirou had always believed that he had to treasure it. But he had never, in more than two millennia, felt his sickness so strongly inside him.
Jyuushirou often envisioned his sickness as a kind of opponent he had to battle every day. Sometimes it gained ground, and sometimes he gained ground. But they always fought, and neither of them won. But now--it was like fighting dozens of opponents at once. He could fight for a time, but in the end, he knew he would be overwhelmed. And gods help him, but he was weary. It was getting harder and harder to keep fighting the inevitable.
As he passed through a room in the Central 46 which contained Kaien and Lisa under a sakura tree, talking about erotic manga, he just had time to realize that nothing about that made any sense before he found himself sitting on a beach in his inner world. Sogyo no Kotowari were sitting with him, their chubby arms wrapped around him.
“Master?” they said sadly, almost on the verge of tears.
“It’s okay, boys,” Jyuushirou said quietly. “It’s okay.”
For a long time, they didn’t speak, huddled together on the barren shore as hurricane winds buffeted them one way and the other, soaking them all to the bone in ice-cold water. Jyuushirou knew he was shivering violently, but he could barely feel it because he’d gone numb. Suddenly, there was a brief touch of warmth--almost painful just because of the contrast--and a hint of perfume amid the salty winds. Shunsui.
He stroked the boys’ heads one last time before he looked up at the roiling sky, and forced himself upwards. It was like swimming through syrup--his movements grew dull and sluggish, and everything ached and throbbed. Why did he keep fighting? It was much easier to go back to sleep, not to fight it, just to lay down and close his eyes...
Jyuushirou opened his eyes sluggishly, searching for Kyouraku in the room as his body registered the cold and the pain, the air being forced in and out of his chest without his consent or cooperation, and the IVs in his arms.
--
The room was warm - warmer than Ukitake would usually tolerate - his sensitivity to the heat well enough known throughout Seireieti that whenever he had cause to pay a formal visit to other divisions, buildings were aired and windows opened well in advance of his arrival. Today, the window remained closed on Unohana's order; the closeness bringing with it a heavy languor that reminded Kyouraku of how little he had slept and for how long, weighing down his eyelids even as he tried to force himself to stay awake.
A sheaf of papers - all awaiting his signature - were stacked neatly beside the chair at his feet, and on the low table in the corner was a tray of food - mostly untouched - which had been placed there earlier in the afternoon by Tenth Seat Furyama, under Nanao's critical eye.
Furyama was a quiet man by the standards of Eighth, but the greying hair - scraped back tightly from his face in a long braid - and the scars on the exposed skin of his neck and hands were a testament to his years of service in the Gotei. Kyouraku remembered him - younger, but still seeming as grizzled - from his first days as a captain; when he and Jyuushiro had still felt like imposters in their white haoris; when they had relied on men like Furyama as they learned to shoulder the weight of knowing that every order could mean life or death for the shinigami under their command. And when Kyouraku had transferred to the newly-formed Eighth Division he had brought Furyama with him, a silent but reliable force among a sea of new and untested faces.
Today, as ever, the older man had said little, though Kyouraku was certain he had seen everything with an eye that even Nanao could not match for sharpness. And as they left, Furyama had paused at the door, turning to bow deeply and with the utmost gravity in the direction of Ukitake's bed before following Nanao out of the room.
It had been a simple gesture, with none of the display that Kyouraku usually associated with such formalities - just the silent acknowledgement of one veteran to another - and he had felt his throat close even as he watched, grateful for the fact that Furyama's eyes did not once meet his.
The slight spike in what remained of Ukitake's reiatsu, faint as it was, cut through the memory and through Kyouraku's half-doze like a blade, brushing at the edges of his consciousness with a painful and unmistakeable familiarity. His own reiatsu was muted - tightly controlled by kidou - Unohana having warned him that Ukitake was in no state to withstand the spiritual pressure of a fukutaichou, let alone a captain. Not that Kyouraku needed to be told when he could feel it for himself, fading daily along with Ukitake’s life.
"Hey, handsome".
The forest of medical equipment on either side of Ukitake was impossible to negotiate quickly, and so Kyouraku stepped behind the bed, reaching for one of the dampened cloths that were neatly rolled and stacked in a shallow tray on the nightstand. Unhurriedly, he brushed back the strands of hair that clung to flushed, damp skin and gently started to wipe Ukitake's face. It was as much a reassurance as an attempt to cool the fever; to counter the possibility of a panic attack when he awoke disoriented, unable to breathe and with the obstruction of a tube in his throat.
Kyouraku’s voice was soft, and he avoided looking directly into Ukitake’s eyes. Too often, now, there was no recognition there - just an unfocused and uncomprehending stare. And if - by a miracle - he was lucid, Kyouraku did not want him to see the tight lines and weary bruises around his eyes which matched Ukitake's own, or to notice that his reiatsu, though calm, had that faint tension to it that came with lack of sleep.
"It snowed again today."
And it had - heavy, soft flakes that settled where they fell, filling in the footprints of the few patients who had been judged hardy enough to be bundled in quilted kimonos against the chill and allowed to take a morning turn around the garden. Kyouraku had watched them from the window, feeling half-resentful of their recovering health and immediately guilty for it.
He had taken Nanao out there earlier, breathing in chill air tinged with woodsmoke as they walked and she gave him her report from the visit to Thirteenth. It was not that Kyouraku did not trust his Tenth Seat - quite the opposite - there were few people that he would have allowed to remain in the room to watch Ukitake in his stead. It was not even that the information had been confidential - it was simply a habit born of the fact that he knew Ukitake held a particular dislike for being spoken about as if he were not present in the room during his periods of sickness.
"Nanao-chan says that the lake at Thirteenth is frozen. But don't worry - Kuchiki remembered to make holes for the koi, and Ginrei-sama sent his personal gardener to trim the bonsai."
He smiled a little more warmly at that, finally risking meeting Ukitake's eyes for a moment as he put aside the cloth. He could see that Ukitake was shivering - feel the tremors under his hand - despite the warmth of the room and the fading winter sun that flooded it with golden light. Silently, he moved around the bed, picking his way carefully among the drips and monitors to sit on the edge of the mattress.
A year ago - less - he would have climbed into the bed and taken him in his arms, trusting in his own presence and his body heat to chase away the fever. It was something he had done many times, in the Academy and since. Now, he did the next best thing, reaching out a hand to rest it on Ukitake’s chest. Carefully, he loosed some of his reiatsu from its tight control, letting it wrap around him and around Ukitake, bringing with it the hazy warmth of sunny days and the deep scent of flowers.
---
The warmth spread through him--comforting and familiar. For a moment, Ukitake let himself soak in Kyouraku’s warm, soothing reiatsu, something real for him to hold onto between the hazy dreams and memories. His own reiatsu, weak as it was, was worn and streaked heavily with pain despite the drugs he knew Unohana was using on him--faded blue rather than the usual strong blues and greens. It didn’t even have a stormy quality to it anymore, just the feel of a beach being pounded and eroded away by relentless waves. But despite his weakness, he could tell that Shunsui was in bad shape, too. His friend had lost weight, and he looked oddly severe wearing only his shinigami uniform, without either his captain’s haori or the pink silk one. Nor was Ukitake fooled by the way Kyouraku was avoiding his eyes--he could see the exhaustion, the sadness. His friend looked so lost, and Ukitake hated it when he looked like that.
For now, at least, Ukitake was groggy and tired, but he knew he was in Fourth. He knew what Retsu had told him, and he needed to speak to Kyouraku, needed the chance to talk to his friend in case he never got another. He could feel the drugs and the kidou pulling him back into unconsciousness, but he pushed them away and nudged Kyouraku with his reiatsu, weak as it was. He gave Shunsui one of his well-worn looks: a look that said, “Stop talking nonsense and deal with what’s really bothering you.” Then, he looked pointedly at Katen Kyokotsu, then at Sogyo no Kotowari, and then back at Shunsui, hoping his friend would get the idea.
It wouldn’t be the first time they’d met in their inner worlds. It wasn’t an unheard of skill among shinigami--though one usually limited to those who had achieved shikai and who were unusually close. In the past, it had sometimes provided a way for them to talk when Ukitake couldn’t speak--although Retsu would probably be displeased that Ukitake would try such a thing in his current state. However, he needed to try. There was too much that he needed to say to let himself just slip away without even saying goodbye.
--
This close, and with their mingled reiatsu amplified by physical contact, the weakness of Ukitake’s was even more pronounced. But despite that weakness, the pain and the fever that lanced through it was powerful enough that when it grated against Kyouraku’s own senses, his eyes watered and he shivered involuntarily in response.
It was nothing he had not felt before, but this time it was different - heavier - edged with an exhaustion and a resignation that Kyouraku had never sensed from Ukitake, even when his illness had been at its peak. Always, even after Kaien, Ukitake’s will to live had been stronger than anyone else Kyouraku had ever known, within the Gotei or without - blazing through his body with a determination that belied any apparent physical frailty. The absence of it now was more shocking than anything else, and Kyouraku almost removed his hand - would have done, had he not felt the feeble pushing back of Ukitake’s reiatsu on his.
The nudge was no accident - Kyouraku knew it as soon as he felt it, his head jerking up and eyes meeting Ukitake's in the same instant, the expression on his friend’s face leaving him in no doubt that he was both fully awake and lucid. It was a look that Kyouraku recognised well enough, and that he had been on the receiving end of more times than he could count since Jyuushiro had first breached his defences centuries ago with an unrelenting honesty that he had both admired and been intrigued by.
He smiled, half-raising his free hand to ward it off, but any answer he might have made was forgotten when Jyuushiro looked away, turning his head slowly and stiffly to the right. Kyouraku leaned forward a little, duckiing his own head enough that he could follow his friend’s gaze beyond the clinical equipment and to the three blades that leaned against the blue-painted wall by the window. And when Ukitake’s eyes caught his again, there was a determination there that was echoed in his reiatsu, a weak but explicit intent which Kyouraku understood without the need for words.
Even so, he did not acknowledge it immediately, biting back the question that half-formed on his lips as he processed what Ukitake was demanding. Of course you’re not strong enough, but if I don’t then you’ll try to do it anyway, won’t you?
“If Retsu finds out, we’ll both be in trouble.”
It was the closest he could come to expressing his reluctance in the face of Ukitake’s unwavering gaze and the matching flicker of stubbornness that infused his reiatsu. A half-sigh and then he glanced across at his twin blades with a nod of resignation.
Katen...?
They do not have the power to bring us there, and nor does he. It is not safe for you to try.
His zanpakutou’s voice was blunt, but more splintered than usual, and he could feel the distinct presence of both spirits - beyond them the faint awareness of two more - Sougyo no Kotowari - though he had no sense of any direct communication between the blades. But he did not need to ask to know that she was doing the same for Ukitake’s zanpakutou as he was doing for its master - bolstering its reiatsu with her own in a bid to protect it from whatever destruction was occurring in Ukitake’s inner world.
I know that.
There was the briefest pause, and then he refocused his attention on Ukitake, the doubts still chasing themselves around his mind despite the knowledge that this was what his friend wanted, and that denying it would likely only lead to him doing something even more foolish in return.
Will you do it?
He did not look away from Ukitake this time, though the question was a silent one and aimed only at his zanpakutou.
He is my brother.
With the answer came a surge of reiatsu from Katen Kyokotsu, powerful enough that he had to slam down against it with kidou to prevent it from flooding into Ukitake’s body along with the carefully controlled trickle of his own. Another soft nod and he reached out to thread the fingers of his free hand through those of his friend, taking care not to disturb the needle that was taped to his wrist.
And then he closed his eyes.
For Kyouraku, taking a step into his inner world was as easy as that. He had years of practice at it after all - and a habit of retreating there on the hottest afternoons, with his hat shading his face and the orange roof tiles of Eighth warming his back.
When he opened them, he was no longer in Fourth, but standing among the grass of a sun-warmed flower meadow beneath the spreading branches of an old and wizened cherry tree heavy with blossom. His shinigami uniform was gone - in its place an impossible robe of flowers that swathed his body and twined into his hair.
Some way away he could hear the breaking of waves on a sandy shore and smell the sharp tang of the sea, sound and scent drowning out the softer ones belonging to the spring that bubbled out of the ground in the centre of the meadow. But the border of their worlds was more distant than he ever remembered it being before, and when he turned his head in the direction of the far ocean the skies were subdued and grey, with no sign of the electricity that usually illuminated the clouds.
They will be safe here.
Katen Kyokotsu stood a few yards away, further into the meadow, her bare feet blending into the dense carpet of flowers. She flickered in and out of focus, indigo furisode alternately belted to the right and to the left, the material pristine where her perfectly manicured fingers rested against her thigh or shredded through by bloody, ripped talons. Kyouraku could only catch glimpses of her face - the hair that was neatly piled onto her head in an intricate arrangement covering her eyes when it fell loose and tangled below her shoulders.
For a moment she blinked out of existence completely - but only for a moment - and when she returned she was not alone. Seemingly oblivious to her constantly changing appearance, two small boys clutched her hands, rubbing their eyes in unison as they blinked sleepily at Kyouraku.
Jii-sama. Where is Master?
He’s with me.
Belatedly, he reached back with all his senses, finding and feeling the dry warmth of Ukitake's fingers.
Then he took another step forward.
--
Ukitake felt the sudden surge of vertigo he always did when he was pulled into Kyouraku’s inner world. In a place of such vibrant, often clashing shades, Ukitake seemed oddly colorless, in a kimono so pale a blue as to be almost white. Everything about him seemed faded and washed out, but he smiled reassuringly at the boys. I’m fine, he told them silently. Go play.
They nodded tiredly and hugged Katen Kyokotsu tightly. Nee-san, they whispered, almost crying into her furisode, regardless of whether it was bloodied or clean.
She put a hand on each head for a minute and then took their hands again. Come along, brother, she said, leading them away.
Ukitake watched them go and then turned back to Kyouraku. He knew he didn’t have much time--he could feel the fatigue creeping up on him already, and he doubted he’d stay conscious for long. Besides, he knew that Shunsui must be expending an incredible amount of energy to get him here, and he didn’t want his friend hurting himself either.
Which was kind of why he was here. Ukitake was...resigned, now. He was fighting, he would fight to the very end, but he knew in every part of him that it was a losing battle. His body was shutting down, and nothing he or anyone else could do would prevent it. “Retsu told you, I take it?”
He only half-remembered her coming in and speaking to him, and it seemed as if the message had half been delivered by her and half by Minazuki, via the twins. But he heard it, and he understood.
--
Not that Ukitake was lucid enough to admire the view at the moment.
When Unohana had a captain as a patient, she always put a supressing kidou barrier up around their room, to prevent reiatsu from leaking all over the healing wing and distressing the healers. At the moment, though, it was hardly necessary--Ukitake’s usually powerful reiatsu was at a mere fraction of its normal levels, and Sogyo no Kotowari were sleepy and quiet. Ukitake himself was pale and still; he had lost weight, making the dark circles under his eyes far too prounounced. His skin was ash-pale, damp, and far too warm, although he was shaking as if he were desperately cold. The only sound in the room was the whooshing of the ventilator as it pumped air in and out of Ukitake’s lungs since he grew too weak to breathe for himself.
Jyuushirou was in a bizarre state composed of half dream and half his inner landscape. Memories and dreams combined with conversations with Sogyo no Kotowari, blended with visits to his bedside that might have been real and might not.
He knew he was dying. His death wasn’t a new idea to him; he’d known he was fighting the odds ever since he was a boy. He had struggled and fought through attack after attack; he wasn’t one to give up on life. Each day was something he had to fight for--and if he managed to live another day, Jyuushirou had always believed that he had to treasure it. But he had never, in more than two millennia, felt his sickness so strongly inside him.
Jyuushirou often envisioned his sickness as a kind of opponent he had to battle every day. Sometimes it gained ground, and sometimes he gained ground. But they always fought, and neither of them won. But now--it was like fighting dozens of opponents at once. He could fight for a time, but in the end, he knew he would be overwhelmed. And gods help him, but he was weary. It was getting harder and harder to keep fighting the inevitable.
As he passed through a room in the Central 46 which contained Kaien and Lisa under a sakura tree, talking about erotic manga, he just had time to realize that nothing about that made any sense before he found himself sitting on a beach in his inner world. Sogyo no Kotowari were sitting with him, their chubby arms wrapped around him.
“Master?” they said sadly, almost on the verge of tears.
“It’s okay, boys,” Jyuushirou said quietly. “It’s okay.”
For a long time, they didn’t speak, huddled together on the barren shore as hurricane winds buffeted them one way and the other, soaking them all to the bone in ice-cold water. Jyuushirou knew he was shivering violently, but he could barely feel it because he’d gone numb. Suddenly, there was a brief touch of warmth--almost painful just because of the contrast--and a hint of perfume amid the salty winds. Shunsui.
He stroked the boys’ heads one last time before he looked up at the roiling sky, and forced himself upwards. It was like swimming through syrup--his movements grew dull and sluggish, and everything ached and throbbed. Why did he keep fighting? It was much easier to go back to sleep, not to fight it, just to lay down and close his eyes...
Jyuushirou opened his eyes sluggishly, searching for Kyouraku in the room as his body registered the cold and the pain, the air being forced in and out of his chest without his consent or cooperation, and the IVs in his arms.
--
The room was warm - warmer than Ukitake would usually tolerate - his sensitivity to the heat well enough known throughout Seireieti that whenever he had cause to pay a formal visit to other divisions, buildings were aired and windows opened well in advance of his arrival. Today, the window remained closed on Unohana's order; the closeness bringing with it a heavy languor that reminded Kyouraku of how little he had slept and for how long, weighing down his eyelids even as he tried to force himself to stay awake.
A sheaf of papers - all awaiting his signature - were stacked neatly beside the chair at his feet, and on the low table in the corner was a tray of food - mostly untouched - which had been placed there earlier in the afternoon by Tenth Seat Furyama, under Nanao's critical eye.
Furyama was a quiet man by the standards of Eighth, but the greying hair - scraped back tightly from his face in a long braid - and the scars on the exposed skin of his neck and hands were a testament to his years of service in the Gotei. Kyouraku remembered him - younger, but still seeming as grizzled - from his first days as a captain; when he and Jyuushiro had still felt like imposters in their white haoris; when they had relied on men like Furyama as they learned to shoulder the weight of knowing that every order could mean life or death for the shinigami under their command. And when Kyouraku had transferred to the newly-formed Eighth Division he had brought Furyama with him, a silent but reliable force among a sea of new and untested faces.
Today, as ever, the older man had said little, though Kyouraku was certain he had seen everything with an eye that even Nanao could not match for sharpness. And as they left, Furyama had paused at the door, turning to bow deeply and with the utmost gravity in the direction of Ukitake's bed before following Nanao out of the room.
It had been a simple gesture, with none of the display that Kyouraku usually associated with such formalities - just the silent acknowledgement of one veteran to another - and he had felt his throat close even as he watched, grateful for the fact that Furyama's eyes did not once meet his.
The slight spike in what remained of Ukitake's reiatsu, faint as it was, cut through the memory and through Kyouraku's half-doze like a blade, brushing at the edges of his consciousness with a painful and unmistakeable familiarity. His own reiatsu was muted - tightly controlled by kidou - Unohana having warned him that Ukitake was in no state to withstand the spiritual pressure of a fukutaichou, let alone a captain. Not that Kyouraku needed to be told when he could feel it for himself, fading daily along with Ukitake’s life.
"Hey, handsome".
The forest of medical equipment on either side of Ukitake was impossible to negotiate quickly, and so Kyouraku stepped behind the bed, reaching for one of the dampened cloths that were neatly rolled and stacked in a shallow tray on the nightstand. Unhurriedly, he brushed back the strands of hair that clung to flushed, damp skin and gently started to wipe Ukitake's face. It was as much a reassurance as an attempt to cool the fever; to counter the possibility of a panic attack when he awoke disoriented, unable to breathe and with the obstruction of a tube in his throat.
Kyouraku’s voice was soft, and he avoided looking directly into Ukitake’s eyes. Too often, now, there was no recognition there - just an unfocused and uncomprehending stare. And if - by a miracle - he was lucid, Kyouraku did not want him to see the tight lines and weary bruises around his eyes which matched Ukitake's own, or to notice that his reiatsu, though calm, had that faint tension to it that came with lack of sleep.
"It snowed again today."
And it had - heavy, soft flakes that settled where they fell, filling in the footprints of the few patients who had been judged hardy enough to be bundled in quilted kimonos against the chill and allowed to take a morning turn around the garden. Kyouraku had watched them from the window, feeling half-resentful of their recovering health and immediately guilty for it.
He had taken Nanao out there earlier, breathing in chill air tinged with woodsmoke as they walked and she gave him her report from the visit to Thirteenth. It was not that Kyouraku did not trust his Tenth Seat - quite the opposite - there were few people that he would have allowed to remain in the room to watch Ukitake in his stead. It was not even that the information had been confidential - it was simply a habit born of the fact that he knew Ukitake held a particular dislike for being spoken about as if he were not present in the room during his periods of sickness.
"Nanao-chan says that the lake at Thirteenth is frozen. But don't worry - Kuchiki remembered to make holes for the koi, and Ginrei-sama sent his personal gardener to trim the bonsai."
He smiled a little more warmly at that, finally risking meeting Ukitake's eyes for a moment as he put aside the cloth. He could see that Ukitake was shivering - feel the tremors under his hand - despite the warmth of the room and the fading winter sun that flooded it with golden light. Silently, he moved around the bed, picking his way carefully among the drips and monitors to sit on the edge of the mattress.
A year ago - less - he would have climbed into the bed and taken him in his arms, trusting in his own presence and his body heat to chase away the fever. It was something he had done many times, in the Academy and since. Now, he did the next best thing, reaching out a hand to rest it on Ukitake’s chest. Carefully, he loosed some of his reiatsu from its tight control, letting it wrap around him and around Ukitake, bringing with it the hazy warmth of sunny days and the deep scent of flowers.
---
The warmth spread through him--comforting and familiar. For a moment, Ukitake let himself soak in Kyouraku’s warm, soothing reiatsu, something real for him to hold onto between the hazy dreams and memories. His own reiatsu, weak as it was, was worn and streaked heavily with pain despite the drugs he knew Unohana was using on him--faded blue rather than the usual strong blues and greens. It didn’t even have a stormy quality to it anymore, just the feel of a beach being pounded and eroded away by relentless waves. But despite his weakness, he could tell that Shunsui was in bad shape, too. His friend had lost weight, and he looked oddly severe wearing only his shinigami uniform, without either his captain’s haori or the pink silk one. Nor was Ukitake fooled by the way Kyouraku was avoiding his eyes--he could see the exhaustion, the sadness. His friend looked so lost, and Ukitake hated it when he looked like that.
For now, at least, Ukitake was groggy and tired, but he knew he was in Fourth. He knew what Retsu had told him, and he needed to speak to Kyouraku, needed the chance to talk to his friend in case he never got another. He could feel the drugs and the kidou pulling him back into unconsciousness, but he pushed them away and nudged Kyouraku with his reiatsu, weak as it was. He gave Shunsui one of his well-worn looks: a look that said, “Stop talking nonsense and deal with what’s really bothering you.” Then, he looked pointedly at Katen Kyokotsu, then at Sogyo no Kotowari, and then back at Shunsui, hoping his friend would get the idea.
It wouldn’t be the first time they’d met in their inner worlds. It wasn’t an unheard of skill among shinigami--though one usually limited to those who had achieved shikai and who were unusually close. In the past, it had sometimes provided a way for them to talk when Ukitake couldn’t speak--although Retsu would probably be displeased that Ukitake would try such a thing in his current state. However, he needed to try. There was too much that he needed to say to let himself just slip away without even saying goodbye.
--
This close, and with their mingled reiatsu amplified by physical contact, the weakness of Ukitake’s was even more pronounced. But despite that weakness, the pain and the fever that lanced through it was powerful enough that when it grated against Kyouraku’s own senses, his eyes watered and he shivered involuntarily in response.
It was nothing he had not felt before, but this time it was different - heavier - edged with an exhaustion and a resignation that Kyouraku had never sensed from Ukitake, even when his illness had been at its peak. Always, even after Kaien, Ukitake’s will to live had been stronger than anyone else Kyouraku had ever known, within the Gotei or without - blazing through his body with a determination that belied any apparent physical frailty. The absence of it now was more shocking than anything else, and Kyouraku almost removed his hand - would have done, had he not felt the feeble pushing back of Ukitake’s reiatsu on his.
The nudge was no accident - Kyouraku knew it as soon as he felt it, his head jerking up and eyes meeting Ukitake's in the same instant, the expression on his friend’s face leaving him in no doubt that he was both fully awake and lucid. It was a look that Kyouraku recognised well enough, and that he had been on the receiving end of more times than he could count since Jyuushiro had first breached his defences centuries ago with an unrelenting honesty that he had both admired and been intrigued by.
He smiled, half-raising his free hand to ward it off, but any answer he might have made was forgotten when Jyuushiro looked away, turning his head slowly and stiffly to the right. Kyouraku leaned forward a little, duckiing his own head enough that he could follow his friend’s gaze beyond the clinical equipment and to the three blades that leaned against the blue-painted wall by the window. And when Ukitake’s eyes caught his again, there was a determination there that was echoed in his reiatsu, a weak but explicit intent which Kyouraku understood without the need for words.
Even so, he did not acknowledge it immediately, biting back the question that half-formed on his lips as he processed what Ukitake was demanding. Of course you’re not strong enough, but if I don’t then you’ll try to do it anyway, won’t you?
“If Retsu finds out, we’ll both be in trouble.”
It was the closest he could come to expressing his reluctance in the face of Ukitake’s unwavering gaze and the matching flicker of stubbornness that infused his reiatsu. A half-sigh and then he glanced across at his twin blades with a nod of resignation.
Katen...?
They do not have the power to bring us there, and nor does he. It is not safe for you to try.
His zanpakutou’s voice was blunt, but more splintered than usual, and he could feel the distinct presence of both spirits - beyond them the faint awareness of two more - Sougyo no Kotowari - though he had no sense of any direct communication between the blades. But he did not need to ask to know that she was doing the same for Ukitake’s zanpakutou as he was doing for its master - bolstering its reiatsu with her own in a bid to protect it from whatever destruction was occurring in Ukitake’s inner world.
I know that.
There was the briefest pause, and then he refocused his attention on Ukitake, the doubts still chasing themselves around his mind despite the knowledge that this was what his friend wanted, and that denying it would likely only lead to him doing something even more foolish in return.
Will you do it?
He did not look away from Ukitake this time, though the question was a silent one and aimed only at his zanpakutou.
He is my brother.
With the answer came a surge of reiatsu from Katen Kyokotsu, powerful enough that he had to slam down against it with kidou to prevent it from flooding into Ukitake’s body along with the carefully controlled trickle of his own. Another soft nod and he reached out to thread the fingers of his free hand through those of his friend, taking care not to disturb the needle that was taped to his wrist.
And then he closed his eyes.
For Kyouraku, taking a step into his inner world was as easy as that. He had years of practice at it after all - and a habit of retreating there on the hottest afternoons, with his hat shading his face and the orange roof tiles of Eighth warming his back.
When he opened them, he was no longer in Fourth, but standing among the grass of a sun-warmed flower meadow beneath the spreading branches of an old and wizened cherry tree heavy with blossom. His shinigami uniform was gone - in its place an impossible robe of flowers that swathed his body and twined into his hair.
Some way away he could hear the breaking of waves on a sandy shore and smell the sharp tang of the sea, sound and scent drowning out the softer ones belonging to the spring that bubbled out of the ground in the centre of the meadow. But the border of their worlds was more distant than he ever remembered it being before, and when he turned his head in the direction of the far ocean the skies were subdued and grey, with no sign of the electricity that usually illuminated the clouds.
They will be safe here.
Katen Kyokotsu stood a few yards away, further into the meadow, her bare feet blending into the dense carpet of flowers. She flickered in and out of focus, indigo furisode alternately belted to the right and to the left, the material pristine where her perfectly manicured fingers rested against her thigh or shredded through by bloody, ripped talons. Kyouraku could only catch glimpses of her face - the hair that was neatly piled onto her head in an intricate arrangement covering her eyes when it fell loose and tangled below her shoulders.
For a moment she blinked out of existence completely - but only for a moment - and when she returned she was not alone. Seemingly oblivious to her constantly changing appearance, two small boys clutched her hands, rubbing their eyes in unison as they blinked sleepily at Kyouraku.
Jii-sama. Where is Master?
He’s with me.
Belatedly, he reached back with all his senses, finding and feeling the dry warmth of Ukitake's fingers.
Then he took another step forward.
--
Ukitake felt the sudden surge of vertigo he always did when he was pulled into Kyouraku’s inner world. In a place of such vibrant, often clashing shades, Ukitake seemed oddly colorless, in a kimono so pale a blue as to be almost white. Everything about him seemed faded and washed out, but he smiled reassuringly at the boys. I’m fine, he told them silently. Go play.
They nodded tiredly and hugged Katen Kyokotsu tightly. Nee-san, they whispered, almost crying into her furisode, regardless of whether it was bloodied or clean.
She put a hand on each head for a minute and then took their hands again. Come along, brother, she said, leading them away.
Ukitake watched them go and then turned back to Kyouraku. He knew he didn’t have much time--he could feel the fatigue creeping up on him already, and he doubted he’d stay conscious for long. Besides, he knew that Shunsui must be expending an incredible amount of energy to get him here, and he didn’t want his friend hurting himself either.
Which was kind of why he was here. Ukitake was...resigned, now. He was fighting, he would fight to the very end, but he knew in every part of him that it was a losing battle. His body was shutting down, and nothing he or anyone else could do would prevent it. “Retsu told you, I take it?”
He only half-remembered her coming in and speaking to him, and it seemed as if the message had half been delivered by her and half by Minazuki, via the twins. But he heard it, and he understood.
--