The broken heart

Rainbow in the Dark

For the next few seconds, Kuchiki locked his depthless, intensive, yet tired eyes on the dark-skinned woman. Even though his battered face remained expressionless and all he said was a mere singular word, Yoruichi felt a rather strange connection between them. Something was going on that hardly required words or even sounds, for that matter, to fill the void. Nonetheless, the woman quickly stepped away from the wounded man, finding it far more challenging than she dreaded to anticipate. A near-constant fear flooded her subconscious, making her question her decisions even as trivial and inconsequential as the one she took a moment ago. In her mind, the current situation was painted as a gamble of the highest stake, with Byakuya's life seemingly on the line. It was plain ridiculous, but the woman's heart unwittingly clenched, envisioning a truly poetic scenery. The 6th Division Captain slowly walked towards the horizon, simultaneously slowly being enveloped by the growing darker and his frame fading into nothingness. Thoughts like this made her heart ache, seemingly forcing it to send wave after wave of pain and anguish that ravaged her very soul. With uncertainty rapidly spreading through her veins, she had no idea why she felt this way, yet one thing was clear. She needed all her self-control not to leap forward and embrace the raven-haired man. As if her fears could turn into reality, she desperately wanted to hold onto him, forbidding him from leaving her behind.

Knowing full well that all of this nonsense had gone too far, Yoruichi energetically shook her head, forcing these bothering thoughts out. Unfortunately, she noticed something she did not expect. As much as she tried to remember when she had clenched her fists, she could not. Still, what she saw before her eyes was undeniable. The woman's palms were balled so tightly that her skin had already whitened. Shaking her head once again, as if repeating the same thing over and over again, was not the definition of madness; she wanted to curse but found herself unable to formulate any coherent sound inside her throat. In all honesty, it was ridiculously baffling how trivial all of these pieces fell into place, seemingly developing as a part of some mysterious event chain that someone carved into the fabric of reality long ago, and now ... most likely watching intently as these events unfolded. She had never dared to believe in having Kuchiki back in her life, yet here she was, standing beside his hospital bed. The more she thought about it, the less sense all of this made. How could he so trivially venture back into her life and turn it upside down? Still, it was hardly the worst part of the current situation. The longer she pondered over the matter, the less she minded this intrusion, slowly but surely following a part of her that she hoped she had buried long ago.

A quiet, barely hearable grunt forced this hardly planned trance to halt abruptly. As Yoruichi's vision slowly cleared, she realised that Unohana's hands were on Byakuya's wounded frame, enveloped in a visible green hue aura. The 4th Division Captain wasted no time, starting to treat the numerous slashes that covered the man's body. Refocusing her sight onto Kuchiki's face, she noticed he closed his eyes and finally allowed semblances of discontent to show. Even at his arguably most vulnerable point, he held himself to a higher standard, possibly deeming it inappropriate for him to show that he was hurt.

That being said, this rather unexpected state lasted only a couple of seconds before the raven-haired man straightened up, parting his eyelids.

"It seems I knew even less about Senbonzakura than I feared," he started, looking at his mutilated hands comfortably resting on the once-snowy bedding.

"Would you elaborate, Captain Kuchiki?" Retsu questioned immediately, not halting her technique.

"When you defeated me, Captain Unohana, I was thrown into a part of my subconsciousness I did not know," the man replied, keeping his voice low. "At first glance, it resembled my clan's grand mansion, but the further I delved into it, or rather, the further I was led into this illusory complex, the more it differed from reality," he added, sighing heavily as if trying to buy himself a moment to collect his wits. "At some point, I ended up in a vast hall, facing two throne-like armchairs," Kuchiki paused, taking a deep breath before following up. "A few moments later, I faced their occupants. One was Senbonzakura while ... the other was his wife, Moiji."