Shards of Spirit
Fandom: Bleach
Characters: Ichigo X Rukia
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, now go read.
Spoilers: Up to Rukia's fight with Arroniero. SoS takes a slightly alternate path and follows the idea that after everyone's initial fights, they were able to retrieve Inoue and return to Karakura. Obviously, anything in canon since then will not be referenced here.
Summary:Do we ever get a second chance? An option to redo what we did wrong? And if we did, would we know what to do when it was given to us? When a mistake threatens to cost Ichigo the thing he never realized was most important, how far will he go to get it back?
Gravely injured, hovering at the brink of death, Rukia remains trapped within her mind, a prisoner to her own inner demons, while Ichigo, determined to restore her, faces not only her own darkness but the fears and illusions in his own heart by journeying into her mind itself to find her and bring the pieces of her soul back together.

Chapter 6 - Deliverance From Sin

The inky darkness was the same as before. Heavy, consuming. Wrapping around him almost like a thick blanket of impermeable velvet black. No sight, no sound, no sensation at all pierced it, save for the faint glow ahead that limned Shirayuki's slight pale figure as she walked before him, long hair brushing the ground that he knew was there, even though his senses were consistently screaming at him that it wasn't. The only things he could feel were the nervous tightness in his chest, the cool damp of his own sweat, and the firm metal hilt of Zangetsu -- or at least, Shirayuki's fake one that she'd created for him -- where it's bandaged length was gripped tightly in sweaty fingers.

He hated this, hated the feel of this unnatural night wrapping around him, like shadowy arms winding about his limbs and dragging him down. It was too much like then, too much like the times he could remember losing his control, listening to that maniacally cackling voice as icy fingers wrapped bruisingly around him and pulled, weighing him down into that same darkness as the laughter increased in pitch. He didn't know what happened then, at least not in the way he knew other things. The first memory he always had after those times was the rising sensation of bile in his throat, accompanied by the knowledge that that thing, his dangerous otherself, had been loose, had done god-knows-what.

But this... this was different. At least with the darkness within him, he could deal with it. Drive it back and crush it down into the depths of his soul where it belonged, where it couldn't do any more harm. The darkness in Rukia's mind... was something else entirely. His control was gone, and that wasn't something he was comfortable with. Gripping the zanpakutou's hilt tighter, he furrowed his orange brow at the faintly glowing shape of the girl in front of him.

"How much longer until we actually get somewhere?"

Even if he'd wanted to, it would have been nigh impossible to keep the irritation out of his voice, to keep the line of tension from showing through and betraying the strain he felt right now simply from their surroundings. As it was, he wasn't trying. Waiting for her answer, he ground his teeth against a curse as the small woman blithely ignored him, continuing on her steady pace through the darkness as though she could see just fine. Hell, maybe she could. It was her world, after all, so he supposed it wasn't all that far out there to assume that it wasn't dark to her. Given that this was Rukia's mind, he couldn't say he'd necessarily put it past the shinigami to have a screwed up mental world that worked on the sole basis of making his life more difficult.

"We are already somewhere, Kurosaki-sama. You simply are not looking properly."

Her ascerbic tone somehow managed to be even more irritating when combined with the near-suffocating blackness and Ichigo felt his fist clench tighter as he bit back a suitably venemous reply. No. Arguing with the little ice queen wouldn't do him any good, and beyond that it wouldn't do Rukia any good. So instead, he contented himself with cursing her in the depths of his mind -- she could read his mind, couldn't she? -- and glanced around himself with a sarcastic glare.

Was she on something? Maybe those damned huge strawberries in that village before were laced with LSD or something, because he was pretty sure he was "looking properly", and all the hell that he could see was dark.

"No, you are indeed not looking properly, Kurosaki-sama. If you were, you would not be so worried about the ground because you would be able to see it without trouble."

This time he couldn't hold back the retort as he shifted Zangetsu's weight and increased his stride to bring him into pace with her much smaller figure, glaring down at her -- not that it mattered, she seemed unperturbed regardless of the amount of anger and intimidation he attempted to direct at her. Just the way Rukia always was.

"And just how," he snarled "would you suggest that I 'look properly'?"

Her stride didn't change, though she turned her head just enough to give him a rather frustrated look from one crimson iris before one arched white brow raised slightly at him and she continued in a flat tone.

"This is a place of the mind. Of the spirit. You yourself possess an immense level of spiritual power and fortitude, not to mention what I can only assume, despite my personal feelings, is a functional intellect. Use them."

Ichigo felt his molars grind together a bit more at her typically cryptic and somewhat insulting answer, but instead of letting that frustration explode outward -- which at this moment was what he really wanted to do -- he turned it inward instead, bottling that energy and anger into a tightly focused beam. Stopping for a moment, he closed his eyes, concentrating. It seemed almost silly at first, this wasn't his world, hell he couldn't even access his own power, so what made the idiot sword think that he'd be able to use his reiatsu for anything at all? Oh well, at least he'd have the satisfaction of proving the midget ice queen wrong.

Shirayuki registered the sudden cessation of his light footsteps behind her and stopped, turning to watch the young man her mistress favoured so much. Despite her own doubts as to Kurosaki Ichigo's intelligence -- among other things -- at least the boy seemed to have accepted his own lack of control over this situation enough to simply listen to what his guide dictated.

She could hear the low rumbling of his thoughts, his frustrations and concerns overlaid with the skepticism that permeated his inner musing despite the way he actually paused to consider what she'd said. Turning, she watched with a slightly amused expression as the orange-headed shinigami took a deep breath before closing his eyes in concentration. Spirit though she was, she could feel the faint prickling at the back of her neck as the reiatsu -- strangely reminiscent of her mistress' -- began to concentrate. It was surprising, really, that the boy had enough power to be able to draw on it even here.

Perhaps.... I misjudged you slightly, Kurosaki-sama...

Using his own reiatsu hadn't really been at all what she'd meant, even. All she'd been attempting to impart to her companion was that perhaps he should cease with his exhaustive attempts to use his eyes in this place and simply use his brain for a change. Let himself relax so that the swirl of reiatsu that made this place could do what it was meant to. But rather than doing that, he was stubbornly attempting to actually force things into their place.

It would be amusing to see if he could manage it.

Ichigo wasn't aware of the fact that she'd stopped, his mind was too focused on the task at hand, at pushing away the thick and encroaching darkness that surrounded him, and fixing the elusive ground beneath his feet before the sensation that he was walking on thin air drove him mad. He didn't hear Shirayuki's sharp intake of breath, didn't see the faint glow that limned his form or feel the way that his reiatsu licked out like a flare from his person, sending shudders through whatever this place was. All that mattered to him was that after a few moments of uncomfortable stillness and void, he could feel again.

Opening brown eyes, he blinked once or twice to clear his vision before casting his gaze around him. Still dark, but now at least he had the sensation that they were walking down a long, vaulted corridor, the faint impressions of walls and arched ceiling and marbled -- he assumed it was marble, it felt slick enough -- floors shining just barely through the dimmness. Glancing at Shirayuki where she stood watching him, he had the sudden sensation of being a child who's just done something they shouldn't. Which didn't make sense, she'd told him he wasn't looking right. Or maybe he was just embarrassed to admit that she'd been right the whole time and he hadn't been 'looking properly'. Either way, he didn't like the way she was looking at him. Reaching up to scratch the back of his head, he shifted his gaze from her bloodred stare uncomfortably.

"....thanks."

Rather than responding, she simply raised an eyebrow in a silent appraisal of his humility -- if you could ever grant that quality to such a man -- and resumed her walking. It wouldn't do to tell him how surprised she had been that he'd managed it, or the sudden shock she'd felt when she'd realized just how much potential a boy like him possessed. It would only serve to swell his -- in her opinion -- already oversized head. Smoothing one hand across the patterned white brocade of her obi, she paused as they reached the end of the marbled hallway, raising her chin to look around as the space abruptly opened into a cavernous room, ceilings hung so high they could barely be seen curving from the edges of walls that stretched wide enough that the room's dimensions seemed to fade into the hazy black.

Careful steps took her to the edge of the marble where she paused, turning around to wait for Ichigo, hands clasped serenely in front of her as she watched him stride forward to stop in front of her, a confused and slightly awed expression on his face as he took in the magnitude of the chamber. It took a small feat of control not to giggle in a rather undignified manner as the young man -- staring at the ceiling and paying no attention to where he was going at all -- stepped around her and let out a yelp of surprise as his sandaled foot landed in icy cold water.

Jerking his moistened appendage back in surprise and irritation, Ichigo leveled a scowl at her. Now what? They had to fucking start swimming?! Gritting his teeth against a growl of frustration, he made himself a mental note to have a nice chat with Rukia -- when this was all over, of course -- about how completely screwed up her head must be that there was a frickin POND indoors.

Growling, he glared at Shirayuki -- she was laughing, he could tell. Even if she wasn't actually laughing, he could tell that at least on the inside, that smug little face was grinning at his misfortune. Little brat. Sweeping one hand towards the huge expanse of water he could now see -- albeit barely -- stretching towards who-knew-where, he planted the other hand squarely on his waist and cocked his head to the side.

"So now what? We swim?"

Her crimson orbs narrowed slightly at the dripping sarcasm lacing his words. Really, was it entirely necessary to be so rude? It was small wonder her mistress took so much time to kick the man. Taking a breath and clasping small pale hands behind her, she stared up at him serenely before taking a single step back into the water. As her zori-clad sole touched the glassine surface of the pool, a clear tone echoed, like the faint chime of a bell through the dimmness. From the center of the concentric ripples, intricate threads of ice spread outward in a starburst of frost, hardening the surface of the water. With another, slightly deeper chime, the ice cracked as a flat, carved stone rose up to meet her foot, water freezing as it sheeted off the intricately detailed butterfly, it's curling swallowtails stretching out into the depths, small tendrils of frost still spreading outward from it's edges.

"No. We walk."

Ichigo took a half-step back in surprise as the delicately carved stepping stone rose out of the stillness of the pool, seemingly in time with Shirayuki's step. It didn't really look trustworthy to him -- 'float' and 'rock' were not generally mutual allies, not to mention he wouldn't have been surprised if it vanished as soon as she took her foot off of it -- but as she turned and began to walk, more obsidion carved butterflies lifting from their sodden hiding places, the ones she passed stayed above the water level. Hell, even the frost stayed at the edges of the stones. Swallowing past the lump -- no, he WASN'T nervous -- in his throat, he stepped forward to place his foot tentatively on the first stone. Giving it a press with his toe, he gingerly shifted his weight onto that foot, testing the black rock. When it didn't vanish, he judged it stable enough and started after her across the pool.

The stones seemed to stretch forever, the clear bell-like tones of Shirayuki's steps echoing against the water as they rose, those same tones the only sound reverberating through the dark room. Sighing, Ichigo tucked his arms behind his head in a stretch, glancing around as they walked. Whatever part of Rukia's mind this was, it was becoming one of his least favourite places. Pausing, he frowned slightly, lowering his arms as he caught sight of something in the water. A shadow, flitting past for a moment before vanishing back into the darkness.

Stepping over to the edge of the stone, he stooped down and peered into the water before recoiling in surprise, one hand reaching automatically for Zangetsu, a curse on his lips as something reached up out of the water, claw-like, grabbing for him. With a startled exclamation, he pulled the blade from his shoulders, sending the glistening metal slicing easily through the upreaching hand.

With an unearthly, watery groan that sounded half like a hollow and half like a human scream, the appendage broke apart, watery fluid splashing back down into the pool with barely a ripple to disturb the surface. Muffling another curse, Ichigo scrambled to his feet, warily looking back into the water -- at an appropriately safe distance, this time -- as formless shapes and faces glided by.

"The fuck..."

"They are the shadows of memories, Kurosaki-sama. Unless you are cautious, they will drag you down with them."

He jerked his head back towards the back of Shirayuki's head in front of him, the pendant gems on her headpiece swaying slightly with her pace as she continued walking, somehow managing to avoid getting the hem of her kimono wet despite the fact that she never lifted the heavy white cloth to move from stone to stone. Brown eyes flicked back to the twisted faces in the darkness, features distorted and stretched as though they were melting, bleeding into the water itself. Hollows... shinigami... some faces he knew, others he'd never seen before. But the most disconcerting part was the faces he recognized. Inoue, Sado, Ishida. Renji, Byakuya. Even himself, his own face in the same twisted mockery as it oozed past beneath the surface of the pool.

Supressing a shudder of revulsion, he moved faster, catching up to Shirayuki until he was one stone behind her.

"What do you mean, 'shadows of memories'?"

"They are the faces of Mistress' life. Every soul she has ever encountered, whether she actively remembers them or not. Their faces remain forever here, trapped within this pool."

Ichigo's eyes widened slightly as he took another look, watching an eerie black-haired version of himself twist it's mouth into a silent scream as it's skin shifted to a sickly greenish hue. What did she mean 'trapped'? While he certainly knew the meaning of the word, he had a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that someone's very soul could somehow become trapped inside Rukia's mind. And beyond that, if they were just memories, then why had the one tried to pull him down into their midst? Did that mean that, somehow, he could get trapped here? The thought was unnerving, especially so as he tried to contemplate what the resultant effects of such a thing would be, what would happen if his soul were trapped here, wandering amidst the endless faces in the pool. Would his body keep living? Would his corporeal form continue to breathe, continue to exist in the real world outside of this place? Would the flesh and bone that tied him to his own world faulter and ultimately decay, while the essence that made him remained locked within her mind, a prisoner for all time? The possibilities were dizzying at best, and that didn't even take into account the sheer horror of the idea of existing like that.

"Kurosaki-sama."

Shirayuki's biting tone cut through the darker thoughts as easily as the sudden cold bite of ice in his gut cut through his attention. Biting back a curse, he staggered backwards slightly, one hand coming up to grip the razor-edged spear of frozen ice where it's sharp end was embedded in his abdomen. Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself to level an angry and betrayed look at the girl where she stood one stepping stone away, gracefully holding the other end of the spear. Staring in disbelief -- she hadn't really stabbed him, had she? -- he bit his lip against the pain, watching almost mesmerized at the slow drip of crimson off of the crystalline surface of the ice as it splashed into the still pool. Yep, she'd stabbed him. The fuck was up with that?! Weren't they on the same side? Tightening his grip around the spike, he opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she was playing at, only to be cut off as she twisted the spike momentarily before red lips opened and she began to speak again, her eyes frozen chips of blood in the darkness.

"If you persist in wallowing amidst such thoughts and doubts, then you will be useless to me, and to Mistress. She does not possess the time for your insignificant insecurities or for your hesitation. If you truly have the will to save Mistress' life, then banish your doubts this instant. If not, then lay here and die with your fear."

With her last word, he felt the wrenching as the ice pulled free, stumbling with a sharp intake of breath as the pain suddenly gave way to a sharp tingling numbness. Looking down in shock, he pressed a hand to his stomach where he knew there should be a bleeding hole. Only... there wasn't one. There wasn't even the crimson staining of the blood that he knew had welled up and dripped hotly down his skin. He studied his unbloodied hand for a moment with something akin to awe before looking back at the white-haired girl standing in front of him, studying him with a look on her face that almost dared him to try something else.

Swallowing, he straightened up. No, it wouldn't do any good to try and attack her, to show her how it felt. This was her world, and moreover, she was a part of Rukia. A creepy, psycho, irritating part, sure. But a part nonetheless. Scowling at her, he ran a hand through his hair before shaking his head as if to clear the thoughts from his head. Psycho-bitch though she was, she was right about one thing. And as bitter of a pill as it was to swallow, nor could he deny the truth to her words. If he wasted his time worrying about what might happen, then it wouldn't matter that he was here. Rukia would die -- and probably him as well, but that mattered far less right now -- and that wasn't an outcome that he was willing to accept.

Shirayuki watched the play of emotions as they sped across his face; the shock and anger at her apparent 'betrayal', the rage and sullen acceptance of her words, and the awe and surprise as the wounds left by her attack vanished as easily as they'd come. Perhaps it was unfair of her, to bring him so close to the possibility of his death, but there wasn't time for baby steps. No time to ease him into the idea that everything depended on nothing more than his will and his feelings for her mistress. Feelings that she was quickly learning were something he spent a good deal of time trying to ignore.

Well, she'd see to that problem soon enough. It didn't do anyone any good to keep those sorts of things bottled up, especially when they might prove to be just what her mistress needed. Resuming her pace, she clasped her small hands behind the elaborate bow of her obi.

"Have you told Mistress of your feelings for her, Kurosaki-sama?"

If he hadn't been paying attention to where he planted his feet -- hey, he didn't want to fall into that stuff -- her casual question would have been enough to send him sprawling into a stunned and mortified heap on the carved stone butterfly. Sputtering in a mix of embarassment and outrage, he scrambled to his feet, glaring at her in spite of the burning he could feel rising in his cheeks. Was she out of her white-haired, bug-eyed mind?!

"The HELL?!"

His tormentor cocked her head to one side, almost like a parakeet contemplating someone's face put to the bars, one white eyebrow raising slightly. She hadn't stuttered. Did he not understand what she'd asked? No, that wasn't the case. In this world, she could hear the harsh cacaphony of his thoughts, could read him as deeply as she so chose. It was simply a courtesy that she kept most of her 'inquiries' relegated to the surface portion of his mind, the 'public' part. The fact that she'd been able to pick up on what he was hiding so easily was simply indicative of the scope of his feelings.

"I asked you a simple question, Kurosaki-sama. Is it really so difficult to comprehend? Or do your own feelings simply frighten you far more than anything you have ever fought against?"

He ground his teeth in rage at her words, not only the sheer audacity of her question, but at her insinuation that he was too much of a coward to admit to feelings he didn't even have. Which was precisely what he snarled at her as his hand tightened on Zangetsu's hilt, even as he ruthlessly crushed that portion of his mind that dared to speak up, dared to try and argue the fact of the matter. It didn't matter, there wasn't a point to things like that. Those things always led in one direction. Closeness. And closeness to someone only served to get you hurt when they invariably left you.

Though she listened to the angry snarl that spilled forth from his lips, her mind was turning over the jumble of frantic thoughts and feelings that seethed in his surface mind, thoughts and feelings that attempted to hide, attempted to deny themselves even as he denied his feelings to her. Sighing, she shook her head. This would prove more difficult than she'd imagined.

Any protests, along with the thoughts swirling within his brain, vanished as suddenly as his vision did in the face of a sudden, brilliant light that exploded overhead like a star, drowning the dimness of the room with it's radiance. Stifling a curse, he raised an arm to ward off the harsh illumination. Shirayuki seemed unaffected -- at least, as well as he could see with the brilliance of the light half-blinding him -- as she simply stood there as though waiting for something. He readied himself for some sort of attack, something coming from that brightness, using the illumination to shield itself, but none ever came. Instead, the painful glare faded, softening into a much more manageable level.

Ichigo blinked stinging eyes to clear his spotted vision, the haze gradually fading until he could once again make out the spread shape of the stone butterfly at his feet, it's graceful wings reaching across the water and arcing up to spread outward and overlap another, larger stone. Amber-brown eyes traveled up the staggared series of steps -- that's what they were now, steps made of overlapping stones that somehow seemed to float above the water -- to the ebony-hued platform at the top. It looked oval in shape, and seemed to hover almost magically a few feet above the surface. As unnerving as the seemingly floating stepping stones had been, a huge stone platform simply hanging suspended in midair was even creepier as far as he was concerned.

Squinting slightly, he could make out figures, shadowy at first, then sharper as if the entire image was a photo being slowly turned into focus. As the cloudiness in his irises cleared, one figure stood out among the rest. Small, pale, clad in white. Eyes widening, he darted forward, taking the stone steps two at a time. He knew that shape, knew that face. It was the same face he'd seen that afternoon in Soul Society, that day when he'd landed -- thanks in part to Yoruichi's flying gizmo -- on the bridge to Senzaikyuu, those same violet eyes that had stared up at him in a mixture of disbelief, fear, and hope.

Rukia

Sode no Shirayuki watched as the tall orange-headed shinigami barreled past her, ruby eyes silently following as his black-garbed form hurtled up the steps. Shaking her head slightly, she continued on at her own leisurely pace up the stairs. Really, for someone who denied his own feelings as much as he did, the man could be so transparent at times. Raising a small hand, she brushed fingertips across the fabric covering her shoulder, as though to brush aside dust that wasn't there, her every motion punctuated by the same soft chiming that seemed to follow her. Kurosaki-sama was a fool, but at least she could be thankful that he was a driven fool, one who would work tirelessly to achieve the ends that coincided with Shirayuki's own wishes. But... that inherent stubbornness could easily prove to be a problem.

He doesn't understand..... No.... he can't understand. This darkness within Mistress' soul has been growing for some time now. The weakness, the cracks in this world. As her strength deteriorates, so does this place. He doesn't know.... doesn't see the truth that she hides from him so well. But here... here he will see it. It will make itself known whether Mistress wishes it or not. And when it does.... she will need his strength. His strength, and the truth that he holds so closely. Otherwise....

Deep crimson eyes flickered from Ichigo's receding form down to the stepping stone at her feet, taking note of the increasingly evident wear and tear to the stone, the hairline fractures that marred the ebony carvings.

...this all may be in vain...

The echoing clang of steel against steel drew her gaze back towards the top of the dias. Sighing slightly -- she knew what awaited them at the end of this destination, just as she suspected she knew how her companion would react -- she quickened her steps just slightly, the chiming sound of bells resounding off of the surface of the water. He wouldn't understand, and beyond that, she wasn't sure if -- even if he understood -- he'd be able to accept and handle the reality.

Her suspicions proved seemingly true as a harsh yell made itself heard over the shriek of metal. Topping the platform, she stopped and watched the scene in front of her, shaking her head faintly for a moment as the orange-topped figure of Ichigo persisted in his idiotic attempts to win a pointless fight. The shinigami was poised protectively -- as much as he could be -- in front of the small white-clad image of her Mistress, doing what he could to defend her on all fronts. It was a pointless battle, not only because for every shadowy figure that raised a blade to Rukia who was cut down by his blade there was another to take it's place, but because of Mistress herself. Or rather, she corrected herself, this portion of Mistress' soul.

The white-garbed figure of Rukia sat still as a trembling rabbit, violet eyes huge and afraid in her face, the only sounds coming from her throat a low drone of unintelligible words broken only by the soft cries of pain each time blade struck flesh, sending new rivulets of crimson sliding across skin and white silk. In front of her, within easy reach, lay the sheathed form of her zanpakutou, it's white beauty untouched by the blood, resting on a panel of black velvet on a raised red jade platform. Silent, deadly, the pendant white ribbon curled around it, the sword rested silently within her reach.

But she will never take it up in defense of herself....

Taking another step forward, Shirayuki couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt for not having prepared the teen for what they would find here. This was her world, not his. And despite the fact that many of these places were changed from their familiar states, altered into a frightening and eerie semblance of what they once were, she still had the advantage of familiarity over him. Catching her lower lip in her teeth for a moment, she called to him quietly.

"Kurosaki-sama, stop this. There is nothing that you can do here."

He heard her words, but they only served to make him more angry as he swung the zanpakutou in a wide arc to crash into an answering blade. Shoving the shadowy figure back with a grunt and a snarl, he turned his head long enough to level a glare at the small white girl. Stop? The hell was wrong with her?! He couldn't just stop, just stop and let these...these things attack Rukia. Not after he'd sworn he would protect her, not after he'd promised himself that he'd never let anyone close to him be hurt again.

"Shut up!"

Red lips pursed as she almost flinched at the faint note of desperation, of borderline panic in his words as he attacked yet another shadow, driving back the faceless man as he turned to shout at the quivering form of her Mistress.

"Rukia! Rukia, stand up and fight! Don't just sit there, pick up the damned sword and fight!"

It didn't make sense, didn't make any sense at all, Rukia wasn't like that, she wasn't some scared and trembling little thing who couldn't even pick up her own sword to defend herself. Hell, she'd had that damn Pyon sit on him while she took on Di Roy by herself and she'd gotten out of that without even a damned scratch. And then proceeded to berate him for thinking she'd needed his protection. That was Rukia. Not this pathetic girl at his feet, cringing from blows she nonetheless refused to shield herself against, staring up with a mix of fear and hope, eyes somehow blank and unseeing, looking through him without any of the usual fire that Rukia possessed, trembling as the blood from her wounds pooled and spilled off the sides of the platform into the water below. No.... it WAS the water below, but he pushed that thought aside as he shoved away another attacker, gritting his teeth as the facsimile of Rukia cried out with the pain of another wound.

"Rukia! Snap the hell out of it!"

"Kurosaki-sama!"

He barely had time to comprehend the sudden shift in his situation as the hard metal shape of Zangetsu melted in his hands, splashing into an insignificant puddle of water at his feet in the same breath that a thick sheet of ice ripped up from the ground, curling around into a wall -- a cage, really -- forcing him away from the shadows. From Rukia. With a roar of anger, he spun, raising a fist to try and break through her frosted prison.

"Kurosaki-sama...."

Somehow, the softer way she said his name, some note of sadness -- he thought it sounded almost sad, maybe the bitch felt bad for stabbing him earlier -- in her frigid voice struck something in him and he actually paused to turn angry amber-brown eyes on her. Biting back a curse as another of the shadows got in a hit on his shoulder, he rounded on the offending phantom in time to watch as the wall of frosted water thickened, widening and spreading up and outward into a half-dome, shielding his person from the shadowed steel. Spinning back towards Shirayuki, he spat at her in anger.

"The fuck are you stopping me for?! Isn't this why I'm here? To save Rukia? Then let me do that!!"

"That girl is not Kuchiki Rukia, Kurosaki-sama."

He stopped short at her words, confusion diluting the rage in his eyes as he blinked, looking in bewilderment from her to the quivering white-clad form behind him. Not.... Rukia? Blinking again, as though the action could clear some sort of fog he hadn't been aware of and make things in this screwed up place make sense again, he turned back to Shirayuki's glimmering shape where she stood sillhouetted against the blackness of the chamber, vermilion eyes almost sad as she regarded him, standing silently as the ringing echoes of steel bounced off of the thick barrier of ice.

"What.... what do you mean, not Rukia?"

His tone was measured, unsure as he studied the dark-haired girl more closely. She certainly looked just like Rukia, and he honestly couldn't see how the zanpakutou's spirit had somehow come to the conclusion that it wasn't. But... she'd been right so far, no matter how much he didn't like it. Even -- and he definitely didn't want to entertain this thought -- perhaps about him...

"That, like the others that we've encountered, is merely a piece of Kuchiki Rukia. A splintered fragment of Mistress' soul, wandering this place that is it's domain. It is not her, but instead a representation of one part of her."

Stepping forward gracefully, white silken kimono brushing the scattered puddles of blood with a whisper of icy wind, crackling spiderwebs of frost racing across the surface of the pools as they froze solid in her wake, Shirayuki stopped beside the quivering piece of Rukia's soul, reaching out gently to trace white fingertips down ebon hair in a comforting gesture that the other girl nonetheless shied away from. Blinking crimson irises through thick black lashes, she turned her face back towards Ichigo and continued.

"As I explained to you before, each of these 'versions' of Mistress that we find represents something, some portion of the whole. We seek not one of them, but rather the heart of them all. The one piece that, above all, represents Mistress' spirit. So too is it in your own world. Many pieces, but only the one right piece."

Face solemn, Ichigo nodded at her words. In some freaky, messed-up way, it made a kind of sense. Hell, he couldn't deny that the idea of many pieces making up the whole worked for him, he'd seen it happen before. Nothing, not all the training, not all the near-death experiences he'd encountered could ever make him forget the way it had felt that first time, locked within his mind's world, the sideways city in the clouds, buildings falling apart into so many boxes while he sought frantically for that one box, that one piece of himself that would ultimately be his salvation from a fate he even now faced. Nodding his head towards the fragment, he raised an eyebrow in query.

"Ok, so if they're all pieces of her, then what piece is this one? You said the hollow one was darkness, right?"

Raising her head from where scarlet gaze was still trained on the girl crouched on the ground, Shirayuki continued her almost absent-minded petting of the dark head that rested slightly against her thigh.

"Not quite. What you refer to as a 'hollow', is the personified form of Mistress' inner darkness, as I explained to you before. What we encountered after that, was a symbolic representation of her reliance on rules, and the chains that she thus forms around herself by her inability to let go of those rules. This part.... represents her weakness. She is the form of Mistress' feelings of inadequacy, her sense of weakness and the helplessness that she feels. Thus, in spite of the wounds given her, and despite the nearness of the weapon to her.... never will she raise it to defend herself."

He could feel the rage building, the flashfire of anger surging up within him at the thought, at her words. Rukia.... Rukia wasn't weak! She wasn't like that, and not because he was idiotic enough to assume that his shinigami partner didn't feel inadequacy or helplessness -- everyone felt those things, even him at times -- but because in spite of that, Rukia just... Rukia was strong. Not only physically, which was in and of itself an anomaly when one considered her tiny stature, but she was strong in other ways too. Her strength was different, it wasn't the same as having the strength to pick up a boulder or swing a sword. It flowed from within her, wrapping around her and holding her up and carrying her through life. And in doing so, it carried others through life. He'd watched Rukia, watched her face death numerous times, and the moments when he'd seen the flash of fear or despair in her eyes had been few enough that he could number them on one hand. Even in the face of hardship, the petite shinigami was like a pillar of stone, a lighthouse amidst stormy seas, somehow managing to keep shining in spite of the deluge that was life.

That fact was one of the things that made Rukia Rukia. It was one of the things he noticed, one of the things he admired, one of the things he... Frowning, he turned the thought over in his head, cursing the white-haired girl's earlier words, her earlier poking at his emotions and his thoughts. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair of her to stir up things he'd long-since decided were pointless to think about, pointless because they wouldn't serve any purpose other than to complicate his already-complicated life beyond what he knew how to deal with. He didn't know -- ok, so technically he knew, though the denial and determination NOT to know was sometimes stronger -- how he felt, and it was frustrating enough to deal with that without the red-eyed midget nibbling at it all the damned time.

"Tch, tch.... don't you think it's a little unfair of you, Little Rabbit? Hiding the truth from the poor boy with shadows and riddles. How cold of you."

The voice echoed through the chamber like the hissing of a snake, shifting and rebounding with the same eerie doubleness he heard whenever Hirako or one of the other Vaizard put on their mask, the same way his voice changed when the smooth porcelain bone slid into place and his vision darkened with the shadowy look of the hollow. Spinning, he was somewhat startled to see Sode no Shirayuki spin likewise, flaxen white hair whirling with the long sleeves of her kimono, errant strands spilling around the pendant jewels of her headpiece like fringed tassels. She seemed equally as disturbed as he was when her sanguine gaze came to rest on the lone figure across the dias from them.

Actually, to say that the girl was across the dias from them wasn't entirely accurate. Rather, her small feet, clad in glistening black zori with hanao the colour of fresh-spilled blood, rested at the apex of a sparkling spray of what looked to Ichigo's eyes to be crystallized blood, fountaining up from the still pool below in a magnificance of sharp-edged and frosted beauty. In appearance, her physical nature was the negative of the white-clad form of Sode no Shirayuki. The same black iron headpiece with it's pendant rubies, though the silken strands drawn up into it's clips were the same midnight ebony as the blood-splattered brocade of the silken kimono she wore, the long tails of her black obi tipped with red fringe where Shirayuki's was pure snowy white. In place of the decorative pearlescent cording, this girl's clothing was trimmed in either ebon black or the deepest red. But it was her face that was truly horrifying, at least in Ichigo's opinion.

That same eerie, childlike visage as the pale-skinned girl to his left, but rather than spheres of deepest crimson resting against the white silken gloss of her skin, what stared back at him were eyes he recognized. Glowing yellow-gold set against unearthly black sclera. A Hollow's eyes, his suspicions only furthered by the tip of a blue tongue as it slid out to wet blood-hued lips.

He knew, without a doubt, that this was the source of everything, the taint that the Hollow had somehow left in Rukia's mind. That it chose to take a perverted form of the shinigami's own zanpakutou only served to cement the thought in his mind as he crouched inside Shirayuki's ice prison, one hand reaching for the blade on his back only to realize with a curse that the girl hadn't reforged the weapon that she had melted. Shirayuki herself still stood in stunned -- or perhaps furious -- silence, her eyes chips of frosted crimson as she glared at the interloper.

"This is not your place, hollow. You do not belong here, and we will see to it that your stay comes to an end."

Ignoring her icy words, the black-haired girl turned her unnatural golden eyes towards Ichigo and laughed, a high-pitched, chilling sound made all the more unsettling by the eerie double-voicedness of it's timbre. Running a finger through raven tresses, she again licked her lips with her blue tongue.

"You should know better, Little Rabbit. He deserves to know, don't you think? You can't hide the truth behind shadows forever."

With a flourish of her hand, the dias was lit with a brilliant glow, the shadowy figures attacking himself and Shirayuki thrown into sharp contrast as the formless gray of them melted away to reveal all-too familiar faces. With a cry of startlement, Ichigo spun around, brown eyes wide as Byakuya, Renji, some black-haired man who looked enough like him that it was creepy, as well as other friends and comrades raised bloodied swords, looks of blankness on their angry faces. But the most frightening of all was the figure of himself, eyes blacked in madness, the white slivers of bone encroaching over his face as the unmasked half grinned in sadistic glee, Tensa Zangetsu wielded in bloodied fingers.

Shrinking back in horror, he protested, stepping back unsteadily towards the edge of the dias, shaking his head. No. It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. Byakuya, Renji.... they'd never attack Rukia, not like this. And he.... he'd never hurt her, never lay a hand on her, but it was the hollow, the hollow attacking her now.

"No! That's not true, that's bullshit!"

She laughed then, not the creepy childish giggle, but the harsh grating sound of a Hollow, throwing her head back and laughing in maniacal glee. Locking her two-toned gaze on the pair for another moment, the grin faded off of her face, transforming into a malevolent sneer as the dias itself began to rumble, cracks appearing along the edges, running rapidly towards the center, beneath their feet. Ichigo barely heard Shirayuki's cry of warning before the structure of the dias gave out, thick chunks of black stone falling into the water below with loud splashes, overshadowed by the sudden roaring as the shaking spread to the entire room. In a matter of moments, they were falling, spinning in a downward spiral into blackness, the ever-deafening laughter of the Hollow drowning out all sound