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Scarlet blood had been used to paint the sky, the impending sense of doom weighing heavily on the Soul Society that had been reduced to rubble, corpses, and the remnants of battle spilt across the ground as if it were water. The moonless sky hung oppressively over the shoulders of Shunsui Kyōraku, the new captain commander of the Gotei thirteen, the thirteen court guard companies. Jaw clenched, he looked above him as another wave of suffocating spiritual pressure rushed by him. That density was ferocious, and though it did not come in crashing waves that broke windows and submerged entire buildings at once, it swept those weaker than it away so quickly that they never had the time to comprehend what was happening before another wave rolled in, pulling them under until the next one came and the cycle would continue until everyone drowned. The ominous silence that enveloped his surroundings was broken when the scuffing of sandals against the uneven grounds approached, a familiar pressure hovering in front of Captain Kyōraku. He lowered his gaze and tipped his hat, assessing the condition of the handsome man standing before him. Jushiro Ukitake, captain of squad thirteen, was motionless with his feet shoulder-width apart, long white hair tumbling down his back and shoulders to blend in with his white captain’s jacket, his deep green eyes slightly unfocused. His face glowed a pearlescent shade of crimson under the atmosphere, a slick layer of sweat coating his delicately sculpted features. White cloth bandages poked out from beneath his shihakusho, wrapped right up his neck to his sharp jawline. Looking at the man he had been best friends with for centuries, beautiful even in the most dire situations, Shunsui Kyōraku felt his stance soften before it tensed again, his lips pressed firmly shut. For those centuries, he had known all along that this was something that could happen; he had prepared himself for it then, resigning himself to the knowledge that the person closest to him, the person he bore the very depths of his soul to, would one day let the right arm of the Soul King tear his body apart, devouring it. All those years of careful preparation seemed to have disappeared as he stared into Ukitake’s eyes, his heart writhing in agony.
“It appears that the kamikake was successful,” he managed to force the words out of his mouth, his gaze falling to the ground where an inky black shadow poured from the soul reaper’s feet—though it was not his own shadow. A shadow figure resembling a human stretched out from Ukitake’s feet across the broken ground, though in the middle there was a distinct almond shape where the gravel was untainted by the deep darkness, a black iris that darted around the shadowless sclera as if it were taking in the surroundings. A ring enveloped the silhouette, wrapping over its head to iconise the being, like a portrait of a saint above an altar.
Beads of sweat rolled down Ukitake’s face, his cheeks seemingly more sunken than they were whenever he last saw him, though he could not remember whether that was a few hours or a few days ago—the chaos of war had warped the temporal passage so terribly that it felt like they had been fighting for a century, and at the same time, it was as if everything that had happened—all the death, suffering, and destruction—was carried out in an instant, those who were left witnesses reeling from the motion sickness. Licking his dry lips, Captain Ukitake tried to speak but his throat hitched and he instead broke into a coughing fit, his breath scraping against the scarred tissue of his oesophagus. Speckles of blood sullied the sleeve of his haori, and although the carmine splatter was darker than usual, a shade dulled by the bleak sky into a frightful merlot, such a thing would not matter soon enough. He cleared his throat and nodded, ignoring the pained look in the captain commander’s remaining eye.
“I was going to say you would be able to push yourself a little harder…but maybe you shouldn’t,” Kyōraku said, plastering a fake smile on his face to hide whatever he was truly thinking. They had been friends—partners—for centuries, and sometimes Ukitake still could not tell what the man was thinking. He was so practiced, masking every emotion so perfectly that the lines between real and fake had perhaps even blurred to the man himself.
“Stop talking like a doctor, it doesn’t suit you,” Ukitake admonished him, but his tone was light and almost playful. With his condition, he was treated as fragile by all of the thirteen court guard companies, and Kyōraku knew how it bothered him when people would tell him to rest rather than fight battles despite his obligations as a squad captain. Being so close with him made it difficult not to tell Ukitake to take it easy; to see the man you love coughing up blood would rattle anyone, so it was something the captain of the thirteenth company had grown to understand. He huffed a sigh as he took in the surroundings, the barracks that once housed an army reduced to piles of rubble, stained with streaks and puddles of blood that seemed to reflect an almost impossibly vibrant carmine shade from the sky above. Some buildings in the distance were left somewhat unscathed, the farther away from the centre of the Seireitei, the farther they were from the line of fire. The captain commander was walking away from the buildings that had been reduced to ash, making his way towards those buildings that hadn’t been blown to pieces. “Where are you going?” Captain Ukitake asked, his voice hoarse and weak.
“Oh, I just have to attend a meeting with some individuals I feel I’ve been seeing far too much of recently,” he muttered in response, using that same floral speech he always did to appear mysterious and unserious. “Though I’ll certainly need to grab a drink, first,” he continued. That was also something he did often: drink. Whether it was to numb whatever he was feeling or forget it all together, it was unclear. Whatever he was heading out of the central Seireitei to do would be painful. Ukitake closed his eyes and took a shallow breath, clutching the captains jacket in his hands to reduce the urge to go tell him not to go. He narrowed his eyes and stared further into the distance, his lips parting slightly in surprise as he made a realisation at last.
“Why…why are you going to Central Forty-Six? What are you going to do?” Ukitake croaked out, his voice steady but cautious. If he had to go to there to receive permission (or force permission from them) it was likely something dangerous, like the decision to allow Captain Unohana to teach Captain Zaraki the art of zanjutsu, something previously not permitted by the faceless legal authority of the Soul Society. What captain Unohana did, though deemed necessary, resulted in her death at the hands of the eleventh company captain, so no doubt what the captain commander was going there to do was in the same vein of peril.
Shunsui Kyōraku tilted his straw hat, the shadow casting over the upper half of his face so that his partner could not see his eye, just the way his lips curled into a bitter smile.
“No, I shouldn’t have asked that question,” Ukitake murmured, more to himself than to the man standing before him. “You’ll be careful though, won’t you?”
The look in Jushiro Ukitake’s eyes was one of sincerity for the soul reaper in front of him, the soul reaper he knew that once he turned away, he wouldn’t be seeing for at least ten years. His head throbbed painfully, his brain screaming for him to spin around and run, run all the way to the lab of research and development to finish this once and for all; but his heart, oh, his heart yearned, begging for him to stay motionless, standing there to take in every inch of Shunsui Kyōraku’s being. To burn his appearance into his retinas wouldn’t be nearly enough to satisfy a decade without the man who made his soul feel whole. His knees trembled as he resisted the urge to walk over to him, to rake his fingers through umber curls, memorise every speck of hazel in his eyes, bury his face in the crook of his neck to inhale the faint scent of alcohol and florals, trace the new scar running from his now unseeing eye to the mutilated ear, then press their lips together so that he could taste him one last time. He didn’t know what would hurt more: doing what he so desperately wanted to do, or not doing it at all.
Shunsui Kyōraku didn’t answer the question directed at him, instead he tilted the cone-shaped hat further down his face and bobbed his head, not enough to even be considered a nod of agreement. The pink kimono he wore draped over his broad back fluttered as he turned to the side, the sharp lines of his statuesque features accentuated by the darkness behind him.
“Be careful…all right?” Kyōraku said, back to Ukitake as he spoke, his voice strained in an attempt to sound stoic and strong, but he was betrayed by the pained tremor in his voice.
“I’ll see you later,” Ukitake blurted out before his brain even had a chance to comprehend the meaning of those words. He was on autopilot, the rest of his body working while his brain lagged behind knowing that soon he would be a dead man. Tensing his shoulders, Kyōraku faltered for a moment then raised a hand up to wave his friend off. Ukitake had just turned, stepping forward to make his way over to the research and development lab where his lieutenant, Rukia, captain Kurotsuchi, former captain Urahara, and many other soul reapers were preparing to head up to the soul palace and confront Yhwach. The kamikake was taking its toll on his body, white hair sticking to his forehead as sweat rolled down the sides of his face. Taking a deep breath, he used his sleeve to wipe his brow and steadied himself to use shunpō.
Kyōraku was not sick, but he felt his heart beating erratically in his chest, the tightness so uncomfortable he thought he might pass out or vomit. He wasn’t cold before. In fact, he felt warm from the sip of alcohol he had taken from a flask hidden in his sleeve when he left the squad one barracks. However, now he felt chills rushing down his body from his head to his feet, his lips parting to gasp for a breath as his brain had suddenly forgotten how to breathe. The words he tried to utter wouldn’t come out of his mouth when he tried to speak, only the man’s name.
“Jushiro,” the captain commander choked, his voice quiet, but the strangled noise that came out with it caused Jushiro Ukitake to whip his head around, smooth, silk white hair flying from behind his back like the wings of an angel. Though his complexion was pallid and his green eyes seemed clouded and unfocused, the man’s gaze snapped onto Kyōraku immediately. For decades, perhaps more than a century, the two had strictly referred to each other by their last names when they were wearing the white haori that marked the two as captains of the thirteen court guard companies, signifying their obligations; only when they were alone, the heat of their bodies pressed against each other, their voices hushed so that one could only be heard by the other’s ears, did they use their first names. Even then, out of habit, they still used their last names only with the honourifics dropped. Shocked to hear his first name uttered by the man he loved in this situation, Ukitake stepped towards the figure whose back was still facing him, the floral pattern on the woman’s kimono he wore seeming unusually dull.
“Jushiro,” Kyōraku said again, the same pain evident in his voice—though he remained with his back to his partner, unable to look him in the face. He mumbled out a choked cry, “please.”
Ukitake took another few steps forward, the gravel crunching under his sandals with each movement. Voice low and trembling, he could feel Kyōraku’s pain with only the three words and it made his heart ache, each muscle tightening, the delicate veins wrapping around the organ felt like they were being torn to shreds.
Hearing his footsteps approaching, Kyōraku finally, slowly turned around to lock his eye on Jushiro. The expression he wore on his face was not one of a man, rather, a child holding in the overwhelming emotions wreaking havoc within his body. It morphed into a manner of complete agony as he opened his mouth to speak again. “Please, Jushiro, don’t leave me,” he whispered his plea in a voice so small it was surely that of a child’s. Shaking hands clung onto the wide, flowing sleeves of Jushiro’s haori, the grip tight but not aggressive. Five words were all it took to make his heart waver, only for a moment, but it shivered nonetheless. He looked at his partner sadly, their pain shared.
“I don’t want to,” Jushiro murmured, leaning in and resting his damp forehead against Shunsui’s, their bodies only inches apart. “I have to, though. You know I have to do this, not just for the Soul Society but for the world of the living and Hueco Mundo too,” he told him, his ragged voice fighting the quiver in his throat. He truly wanted to stay, to spend the rest of his life with this man in his arms but he could not abandon his responsibilities and leave such a burden for a young man—a boy—like Ichigo Kurosaki. Ukitake knew that his body was frail and weak, ravaged by his childhood sickness so terribly that it wouldn’t last long, but it would last long enough for Mimihagi to ascend to the throne and take its rightful place in the heavens where it belonged for centuries.
“I know,” Shunsui choked out through a sob, the one good eye he had turning glassy with tears that teetered on the edge, threatening to fall. “I know, I know I am a selfish man, it’s cruel for me to beg for something I do not deserve.”
Jushiro sighed and raised his right arm to Shunsui’s cheek, his pale, slender fingers stroking the stubble that lined his jaw, wiping the tear that rolled down his cheek. He almost began sobbing himself when Shunsui leaned in to the curve of his palm, his chin quivering as he closed his eye, long black lashes wet with tears. “I want to stay, my love. But I can feel it, and I know you can too, the very balance of these three worlds slipping away from us now that the Soul King is dead,” he said in a hushed voice, closing his own eyes so that he didn’t have to look at the pained expression on Shunsui’s face any longer.
The scar that ran from his right eye across the side of his face to his ear which had been shredded by a Sternritter’s vollstandig throbbed, shots of pain like pinpricks spreading through the damaged nerves. He clenched his jaw and shakily sucked in a breath. Logically, he knew that Jushiro was correct. Of course he knew that. He was at the end of his rope, the loss of captain Unohana and commander Yamamoto too recent.
“Please stay with me,” he begged, and both opened their eyes to stare at each other longingly. Though he only had one that was uncovered, the intensity of the emotion held in Shunsui’s deep, brown eye almost caused Jushiro to crumble at that moment. He would do anything to stay, but there was nothing he could do. “I let everyone die…my brother, sister-in-law, Unohana, and old man Yama too…please, how can I go on without you?”
Jushiro wrapped his arms around Shunsui and pulled him close, sharing the warmth of their bodies. Tenderly rubbing the man’s back, he nudged his hat back with his forehead and pressed a soft kiss to the hot skin. The quaking separation of the three worlds was growing more and more intense as time passed, he had already made a grave mistake by turning back when Shunsui called his name, but he could not leave him now. To love was also to grieve, and both he and Shunsui had spent their centuries together mourning the eventuality of their separation, but it did not make it any easier knowing that today was going to be that day. Perhaps if others had lived, letting go of Jushiro would have been easier, but the loss Shunsui had experienced in only a few days was enough to cripple anyone, and it was a sense of loss that he was familiar with. One would think it easier to heal from something they had experienced before, but the truth is that Shunsui never healed in the first place. A shattered soul like fine china had been cautiously repaired with glue, pressing the fragile sides together until it looked the way it had before, but the truth is that it would never be the same. Those cracks, though so thin they were barely visible, were still there, compromising the integrity of the entire piece. In the end, the glue would eventually dissolve and the broken pieces would separate once again.
The sable iris darted around the almond shape that had been cut out of the shadow behind Jushiro, pointing nervously towards the research and development lab. Time was slipping from between his fingers like water, no matter how many times he brought his hands to the basin to scoop up more, it would always flow through the gaps. He glanced at the smoky silhouette then returned his attention to his grieving lover.
“My time here has run out. It ran out hundreds of years ago, Shunsui,” Jushiro murmured next to Shunsui’s unscathed ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin eliciting a shudder. “Mimihagi gave me so much time that it is a debt so large I can never repay it. It gave me the power to attend the academy where I met you, and to become a soul reaper alongside you. Shunsui Kyōraku, if I was given that time in different lives I would use them all to be by your side. My strength, my position as a captain, everything I have gained from these years I have been given—I would trade them all for you,” it felt like he had swallowed sandpaper; his voice so hoarse it stung as he spoke, but those words could not be stopped. They tumbled out faster than Jushiro himself could even comprehend. He didn’t know if they made sense and nor did he care. For hours before performing the kamikake he had readied himself for his final meeting with Shunsui Kyōraku, practicing the art of suppressing his emotions. It didn’t work; he couldn’t stuff his pain into a box because his eyes and mouth betrayed the security he had so carefully carved out.
“So please, stay. Can’t we be selfish just this once?” The request came out as a whine, the mournful pleas of a sinner, Shunsui’s hands running up and down the other man’s back, combing his fingers through the soft white hair, his very last thread.
With a forlorn look in his eyes, Jushiro smiled pitifully against Shunsui’s skin. It was impossible for him to walk away now, even though he knew that the longer he stayed, the harder it was going to be for him to leave. That’s why he wanted to say goodbye in a fleeting farewell, one that neither could think too deeply about because it would be less like their final goodbye and more like a temporary parting. He and Unohana both knew that they would see each other very soon, and as well-read and knowledgeable as Kyōraku was, he had seemingly forgotten the old wives’ tales that had been whispered and passed around, hushed voice to listening ears, for centuries, if not millennia. If he said those words, though, he was afraid that the man he loved would abandon all reason, throwing away his responsibilities and the importance of his position to break through the gates of hell for the sole purpose of reaching him. Jushiro would risk his life for Shunsui, in fact, he would sacrifice his life for him. On some level, it was true that he was going to take the Soul King’s place, only momentarily, to return Mimihagi back to the place it belonged, the body it was so crudely cut from many thousands of years ago. It was also true that he was going to sacrifice himself for the sake of the Soul Society, the place where the people he loved most were, the place where he had been given a purpose that outweighed his illness. However, those were only tiny factors in his decision, perhaps not even relevant at all, simply excuses that made him feel noble for what was essentially his own suicide; he was ending his own life for one man and one man only: Shunsui Kyōraku. It was conceivably ironic that Jushiro Ukitake had made the decision to sacrifice his own life for a man who had been warped so unrecognisably by centuries of grief that his own bankai, the reflection of his soul, was a characteristically theatrical suicide play.
“These pins in my hair, the kimono I wear across my back, the position I now hold…” Shunsui cried softly, stuttering through the words he spoke. “I am an amalgamation of the people who have died and left me with their most precious belongings and responsibilities that are too heavy to carry any longer.”
“Oh, Shunsui,” Jushiro whispered, placing another kiss on the man’s forehead. “I won’t leave you with anything,” he continued. His hands fumbled behind Shunsui’s back and up his curly hair, feeling the cool metal of the expensive pins he wore to honour his brother and sister-in-law, the tips of his fingers gliding across the silk kimono draped over his shoulder. One hand traced the skin under his black eyepatch, causing him to shudder as Jushiro touched the scar tissue on the side of his head left uncovered.
“You already have left something with me: you love. I’ve given you mine, too, but what will I do with these feelings if you’re no longer around to share them with?” Shunsui’s hands gripped the fabric of Jushiro’s uniform so tightly that his tanned knuckles had been blanched a sickly shade of white, the hairs on his hands prickling.
“Save them. Keep them safe so that you can return them to me one day,” Jushiro told him, running his finger to Shunsui’s ear and taking off the eyepatch so that he could look at the damage left behind by the Sternritter’s reishi bullet. He could have asked Orihime Inoue to use her power of rejection to heal his face, and if he didn’t want to impose on Kurosaki’s friends, he could have asked for the help of squad four and the department of research and development. When he first saw the terrible wound, he was horrified, mentally mourning the loss of one of Shunsui’s beautiful eyes. Once the blood had been wiped away, though, Jushiro realised that he looked just as handsome as ever, just as handsome as the man he fell in love with all those years ago was. At first, he wondered if the reason the captain commanded hadn’t asked for Inoue’s help was because he was following in the footsteps of commander Yamamoto, a man who refused to enlist in the help of humans. When he asked Shunsui, he said that he had kept the wound out of humility; a reminder not to drop his guard around anyone. That night they both slept side by side with Jushiro placing the most gentle of kisses around the eyepatch, telling the man he loved how beautiful he was. Eyes closed, silence fell upon the room, and Jushiro felt himself slowly falling asleep when that peaceful quiet was interrupted by a gruff voice.
“This missing eye was a punishment for the sin I committed all those years ago,” Shunsui had said in a muted tone, his breath tickling Jushiro’s nose.
“What do you mean?” Jushiro asked sleepily, cracking open one of his eyes to stare at Shunsui, who had his uncovered eye closed, the long dark lashes casting shadows across his prominent cheekbones. He tried to think about what the ‘sin’ could be, but he couldn’t fathom the idea of Shunsui doing anything wicked enough to warrant being maimed so viciously. Flaws were something that every soul carried, and Shunsui Kyōraku surely had his own blemishes, however his propensity for flirtation and love affair with alcohol certainly wouldn’t justify losing an eye.
“For what I made Ohana do for me. I played God with my own zanpaku-to. Losing my eye, the same eye that Ohana plucked out to create Okyō…I’m being made to atone for my sin, the desecration I committed that day,” He muttered. His voice was low and dark, laced with the belief that he really did deserve to have such an awful thing happen to him. Centuries ago, Isuzu Ise, Nanao Ise’s mother, begged her brother-in-law to hide the Ise sword, a sword said to carry a curse that doomed the men who married into the Ise family to die premature deaths. She did not want her daughter to be impacted by the curse, so she had Shunsui hide it. In order to do that, he asked his zanpaku-to spirit, Katen Kyōkotsu, to create another spirit that would take and conceal the Ise sword, and to do that she plucked out her own eye and used it to create the spirit of a young girl whose face was a black hole, only her right eye like that of a human’s. These events resulted in Isuzu Ise being executed by central forty-six for losing a precious artefact, adding another death that Shunsui blamed himself for. Was that really so sacrilegious? He did it for Isuzu, so for all Jushiro thought, the original sin was her action. Shunsui was young and naïve then, he didn’t want to take the Ise sword, but he felt obligated to because he thought it was done to protect his niece. In the end, it only contributed to the misery that has been haunting him ever since. Jushiro felt his heart twinge and wrapped his arms around his partner, pulling him close so that their bodies melted into one, tangled limbs and beating hearts pressed against each other.
He didn’t know how to respond to what the man had said, the words were lost in his throat. After a moments silence, his lips parted and he spoke. “I love you, Shunsui,” Jushiro whispered as he buried his face into the crook of Shunsui’s neck, inhaling deeply and savouring the warmth of his skin.
“How can I keep fighting without you by my side?” Shunsui asked through another sob, his body slumped against Jushiro’s. The longer they stayed in the war-torn centre of the Seireitei, the more erratic the inky silhouette behind Jushiro became, the more intense the trembling of the ground became, and the heavier Jushiro breathed. Above all, the more painful parting from his love was going to be.
“You have always been strong—the strongest person I know. Please keep fighting,” he told the man, desperation dripping from his pleas. The quaking that rocked the three worlds ticked forward, the time left on the clock waning by the second. “Shunsui, I have to go.”
“Please. Don’t,” the man cried, his head tilted to the ground to hide the crumpled expression on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’ll see you soon; wait for me, okay?” Jushiro said, taking his stubbled chin in one hand and tilting his face so that his one good eye, a soothing brown like hot tea on a cold day, staring back at him to let him know that he was not lying when he said that they would be reunited soon, even if they had to wait a decade for that day to come. He pressed his lips against Shunsui’s, his cheeks wet from tears, and they stood there locked in each other’s arms until the rumbling of the earth beneath their feet pulled them apart. Gasping for breath, Jushiro wiped the sweat and tears from his face and forced a pathetic smile on his face as he stepped away from the man he loved so dearly. “I love you, Shunsui Kyōraku,” he said at last, the pain in his chest almost unbearable. White hair and white haori flapped in the breeze that passed between the two. How hundreds of years could feel like a gust of wind, a fleeting moment passing them by. The decades before and after would feel eternal in comparison.
“Jushiro!” Shunsui wailed, his spiritual pressure wavering, the crunch of the gravel under his legs as his knees finally buckled under the grief and he sank to the ground. His hands ached as he grasped little stones that dug into the tender skin. Tears rolled down his cheek, pouring onto the traumatised concrete that watched silently as the bleak shadow on top of it followed closely behind Jushiro Ukitake.
Nothing could compare to this kind of torture, so cruel and unjust. If he had a choice, Jushiro would choose to have his body picked apart by hollows, burned in the flames of commander Yamamoto’s ryūjin-jakka, and stabbed a thousand times over and over. Surely, no other torment could feel like every inch of his body was being twisted, deformed by a heart-wrenching ache. With each step he took toward the bright light emitted by the lab of research and development on the horizon, the suffering only seemed to get worse. He didn’t dare look back. If he were to look back and see the crumpled form of his soulmate, he would surely abandon all reason and let the world fall to pieces just so they could die side-by-side.
Shunsui stayed on the ground, clutching his chest, right over his heart that writhed in agony. Watching Jushiro retreat, the halo of light cast over his head by the lights in the distance made him ethereal, a heavenly being that had to return to the place he came from. An angel fated to make his way back to heaven, bathing in the glow of white clouds and spring sunlight. Shunsui was left to be tormented in the depths of hell, the ache that shocked his body akin to what one could only imagine being set on fire would feel like. His eye was trained on his lover’s figure as if to remember each strand of silken hair, the movement of his captains jacket, the gait of his walk, and the way his steps faltered at the sound of Shunsui’s broken sobs. Hunched over as if he were prostrating to the gods to beg and plead, Shunsui repeated their last words to each other over and over until his throat felt hoarse and his voice was lost. The Soul King had long since been slaughtered by Yhwach, the god would not hear his prayers. When he gathered what little strength he had left, Shunsui Kyōraku pulled himself to his feet and turned in the direction he had been heading in before crossing paths with Jushiro Ukitake. With the man he lived for marching to his own death, Shunsui felt more resolved than ever as he entered the chambers of central forty-six. Using his own life as leverage, he allowed them to carve a hole in his chest, embedding a key tightly within that would prevent Sōsuke Aizen from escaping the constraints forced upon him in Muken. When he had nothing and no one to live for, the prospect of having his heart dug out by a man yearning for freedom could not even provoke him to flinch. He entered the underground prison, letting out a soft sigh at the sensation of Aizen’s oppressive spiritual presence, and used one singular key to begin their conversation. His tears had been dried, disappearing into the sleeves of his captains jacket, the tingling warmth of his last kiss with Jushiro replaced by a layer of dryness from the arid climate in Muken. The persona he had spent centuries carefully crafting was back, laziness laced through his smooth voice as he spoke.
“All right, let’s have a talk…Sōsuke Aizen.”