The Wound Within

Burakkuhoru soberly relaxed his grip, "I see. So you can't feel anything here," he uttered quietly, sounding almost saddened, "I didn't think it was possible, but you truly have found a way."

Kyousuke's scalp stretched up painfully by the strands of his hair. He could hardly believe how much physical strength Burakkuhoru possessed on top of his tower of spiritual pressure. It hurt to struggle; however, he wasn't content to just resign himself to utter helplessness. Finally, he felt Burakkuhoru's grasp against his hair release, dropping him to his knees.

"Then, there is only one course of action for me to take," said the Sword-spirit. He pointed his sword at Kyousuke as a barrier of amethyst light grew up around him, "I must kill you, Kyousuke; for the sake of my own survival!"

Staggering back to his feet, Kyousuke turned to face the enraged spirit, "For your survival? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You have detached yourself from me," answered Burakkuhoru as the mystic plane began to shift once again. The skies altered into a new color, shifting into a bright lime-green atmosphere above the two warriors, "Somehow, while you are aware of my presence within your sword, you and I are no longer linked as Soul Reaper and Zanpakuto."

Kyousuke exhaled a gasp of surprise. How was such a thing possible, he wondered.

'We're no longer connected? How can that be?'

"Although," Burakkuhoru continued, "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure there ever was a connection between us. From the moment I was born, I discovered I was dying."

"Now I realize that the only way I can continue to live, is if I destroy the one who orchestrated my destruction," Burakkuhoru said, spinning his sword around his thumb and holding it out straight at Kyousuke, "You."

"Hold on, what you're saying doesn't make any sense!" Kyousuke objected. "How could I be destroying you without even knowing it?!?"

"If I knew the answer, Kyousuke, I would tell you," Burakkuhoru replied. "But the truth of the matter is that something like this has never been done throughout the history of the Soul Society. No Shinigami has ever managed to completely sever themselves from their Zanpakuto, yet continue to use its powers. It may very well explain why you have never been able to control me in battle. Then again, it doesn't really matter at this point."

Burakkhoru set himself into a fighting stance, spreading his legs apart and leaning himself forward on his right leg, while the left leg stayed back for perfect balance, "Since you cannot sense the connection between us anymore, it means that in order for me to live, you must die."

Kyousuke didn't know what to say. He had no desire to kill the spirit of his Zanpakuto (though it wasn't likely he could anyway). He never knew he had caused such damage and separation between them either, "Wait - there must be some way to fix this!" he suggested. "If we can be separated from each other, then can't that connection be restored?"

"I see no plausible means of doing that," answered Burakkuhoru. "Right now, you and I are standing here as two completely different individuals; no longer bound together as one. If you were to call my name here, I would not be compelled to answer. Somehow, you've released me from my obligations as your sword, and I have but only one purpose now."

Kyousuke couldn't make sense of any of it. In spite of all that he was taught about Shinigami and their link with their Zanpakuto, he couldn't understand how he, of all people, could somehow discover a means to completely divide himself between his sword; the manifestation of his very soul.

'What does that make me?' he wondered.

"You are a cancer, Kyousuke," Burakkuhoru said, as though he had somehow tapped into his mind and heard his thoughts. "A blight upon both Shinigami and Zanpakuto alike. Everyone you come into contact with will feel the weight of the disease you carry around; therefore, you cannot be allowed to live any longer."

'A disease?'

"I am going to finish you once and for all, Kyousuke," Burakkuhoru threatened, narrowing his gaze on the young man. "No more will I, nor anyone in the Soul Society, have to bear the weight of your weakness. I am sorry it had to come to this."

With those words, Burakkuhoru suddenly vanished from sight, stunning Kyousuke momentarily. He could feel the air behind his neck dance frantically and dropped his head low just as a blade passed over him, cleaving only a large group of hair from his head. He dove forward, tucking and rolling a few feet away from Burakkuhoru and narrowly avoiding another blow which would have sliced him in half.

'He's so fast! I couldn't follow his movements at all!'

Kyousuke quickly rose to his feet and turned to find Burakkuhoru right on top of him, looking him dead in the eyes. It was purely by instinct that Kyousuke raised his sword in time to intercept another impactful strike aimed at chest. His arms shook against the collision, which allowed Burakkuhoru to break through his guard and cut a shallow gash across his chest.

Burakkuhoru's raw strength easily sent Kyousuke soaring backward, pushing him off the modest piece of land protecting him from the dark waters which now passed beneath him. Remembering what the man said about the pitch-black ocean, Kyousuke threw himself into a back flip and set his feet upon the air, but was unable to stop himself. He had been hit too hard and thrown with such force that it took practically all the strength his legs could muster just to slow his velocity. Finally, after traveling what must have been 300 yards, he slowed to a halt.

Sweat glistened against his face as the young Shinigami panted heavily to catch his breath. Burakkuhoru's strength, speed and power were far beyond his own. He was completely outmatched.

He considered going down on a knee for a few seconds of rest as he was already beginning to feel spent.

'Damn it! Why is this happening?' he mused, 'How did it all come to this?!'

"Are you afraid?" a voice whispered right by his ear. He felt Burakkuhoru's breath on the back of his neck, filling Kyousuke with terror. He turned to locate the man, only to run into a punch so strong, he literally lost any sense of taste for a moment. The entire left side of his face had gone completely numb as he was sent tumbling away once again across the air.

The cold wind roared in his ears as Kyousuke spiraled around uncontrollably across the breathtaking dimension. He attempted to set his footing once again, but could not assemble the strength necessary to stop himself this time.

'It's amazing. I know I've only been struck a few times, yet it feels as though I've been fighting with him forever.' Kyousuke denoted.

He finally came to an abrupt halt as something latched on to the back of his neck like a vice. His body whipped back harshly before his limbs came to dangle limply over the dark sea beneath him.

"You came here hoping to best me in battle," Burakkuhoru's said as he held his former master by the neck. "Hope is useless, Kyousuke. Hope is weakness personified by the helpless. It is neither truth nor action. It is blindness. And I will not allow myself to be beaten by one who is blind and helpless." With that, he suddenly tossed his sword into the black ocean.

Kyousuke's head hung low into his chest. The left half of his face was coated in blood, staining his hair and Shihakusho. His clothes were soaked by the crimson essence and fell in rivers into the ebony brine below. Suddenly, the waters began to ripple and up from the depths, he watched as a long black pole extended up from the surface. Could it be? Was it really?

Finally, he saw the long 2 foot blade appear and a knot formed in his throat. It was the weapon that possessed a never-ending thirst for the blood and life force of it's enemies; the form of a Zanpakuto that echoed a song of death to those that laid eyes on it. It was his sword, unmasked: Burakkuhoru.

As the naginata raised up from the belly of the black ocean, an aura of vibrant violet light engulfed it. Kyousuke trembled in Burakkuhoru's grasp, already able to hear it's hunger growling at him. Like the spirit of the blade, the weapon began to instantly swallow up bands of multicolored energy attempting to pass by. Slowly, the weapon rose higher and higher above the sea until it suddenly rocketed upward straight into the real Burakkurhoru's outstretched hand.

The fiery lavender ambiance proceeded to wrap around him, allowing Kyousuke to feel both energies merge together as one single entity - with the spirit proving to be the more dominant power. Now combined, the realm quaked under their power, which practically stole the breath from Kyousuke's own body. The waters chopped and crashed in violent waves; the stars above spun rabidly, and the multicolored energy ribbons began to pour into his body as though they were instantly attracted to his power.

This was the final nail in the coffin - where all of Kyousuke's hopes were instantly dashed to oblivion. There was no fighting against such a force. This would be his final resting place...

Burakkuhoru held the weapon over Kyousuke's shoulder, allowing him to look down the length of the shimmering black blade, and hear clearly, the thundering roar of it's hunger which had thrown the entire domain into a frenzy.

"You never answered me before, Kyousuke," muttered Burakkuhoru as he touched the blade against the Shinigami's throat, "Are you afraid?"

Kyousuke thought to say "no", at first. He wanted to laugh or at least smile at his situation, yet his heart was like a brick beating against his chest. He knew there was no point in trying to deny it. Hiding his eyes beneath the bangs of his hair, he answered, "Yes."

"Good," Burakkuhoru said before suddenly releasing Kyousuke and letting him drop down toward the black ocean that would swallow up his energy and then his life.

Kyousuke fell precariously toward his doom, closing his eyes in surrender when he suddenly felt something solid plunge through his body. His eyes snapped open as he spit up a mouthful of blood. Above him, Burakkuhoru hovered with his right arm thrust completely through the Lieutenant's body.

Kyousuke tried to gasp, but couldn't inhale a complete breath. It was no mirage this time. The pain that swelled up through him felt very real. A darkness began to surround him. This was it.

"Then maybe you just might have a chance," Burakkuhoru uttered as he jerked his bloody arm out from his master's body and watched him fall stiff into the black waters.

A dynamic surge of light sprung up from the depths, illuminating the realm before slowly fading away. Burakkuhoru slowly descended down onto the waters, standing upon the surface. He looked down against the reflection, watching as the entire ocean turned a deep red underneath him.

"Now let's see just what kind of man you are, Kyousuke Junichiro," he said, sitting down cross-legged upon the waters and laying his polearm over his lap. He stared into the depths of the crimson sea for a minute or so before gently closing his eyes...

There was nothing but blackness all around him. He couldn't feel any pain. Was it over, he wondered? Was he dead?

'I feel so light. Almost like I'm flying.'

Suddenly, he felt a crisp, cool breeze pass over, and the darkness enveloping him began to split open. In the distance, he saw light, colored blue and a bit hazy. The darkness attempted to swallow the light up, but to no avail. Gradually, the darkness broke away, and the light above seemed to get brighter and brighter. It was a mix of gentle blue and pure white, which passed in and out of focus for a few minutes. Finally, it came together, and he was able to make out the shapes that moved gently against the mass of blue.

'Clouds? Is that... the sky?'

Kyousuke blinked a couple of times, lost and confused as to where he was. Drifting gently above him were puffy white billows. They were clouds! That was the sky!

'Where am I?'

Still feeling a bit disoriented, he wiggled his fingers; looking for assurance that he was actually conscious and still in his body. Beneath his wriggling fingertips, he felt the blades of grass tickling him. What did this mean? Was he dead or not? He couldn't tell for sure. Recalling what had happened to him just moments ago (or at least seemed like moments), during his battle against Burakkuhoru, he raised his left arm up and slowly guided his hand toward his chest.

At first, he was a little apprehensive about what he might feel once he touched his chest, but decided, in the end, what did it matter? He took in a breath and finally laid is hand on his chest, expecting to find a gaping hold in the center, where Burakkuhoru had stuck his hand through. It wasn't there! His hand was stopped short by a solid barrier of bone, sealed closed by flesh. The wound was gone!

'What's going on here?'

He laid there, flat on his back, staring up at the sky in disbelief. It didn't make sense and he still didn't know if he was alive or dead. Had it all been just a dream? Was he awake from Jinzen now? He didn't know anything anymore.

"How long do you plan to lay there?"

A voiced called to him. It was a male voice, but he didn't recognize it. Taken aback, Kyousuke sat up and looked upon a man with short, combed blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He was a tall figure, probably just over 6 feet, slim, clothed in a white dress shirt with a red tie fastened loosely around his neck, along with khaki dress pants with his hands tucked into the pockets, and fancy black loafers.

"Who are you?" Kyousuke asked.

"How should I know," The man replied with a shrug. "You put me here, remember?"

Kyousuke's head snapped back, disconcerted. "What?!" he breathed, barely able to even get the word out.

The man made no response to his reaction, nor did he bother to try and explain himself further. He just continued to stare at Kyousuke as though the answer should've been obvious to him from the start. "So, are you going to just sit there, or are you going to try and figure a way out of here? And you might wanna make your decision fast," he said as he pulled a hand from his pocket and pointed his finger skyward, "You don't have all day to think about it."

Following the direction of the stranger's finger, Kyousuke tilted his head back and gazed up at a massive black hole hovering above the city they were in. His breath caught in his throat. "What the hell is that thing?!" he asked as he watched the clouds themselves get sucked into it's black void.

"That - is our inevitable demise if you don't figure out some way out of this place," said the man plainly.

The swirling black vacuum must have been the size of the moon, swallowing up each and every cloud that drew near it, as well as the dust in the air which gave the sky it's magnificent blue pigment! As Kyousuke stared at it, he could detect a certain force lightly tugging at him; as though something were trying to pull him up into the giant vacuity.

"You don't have time to stand there staring at it!" the man's voice suddenly snapped at him, drawing Kyousuke's attention away, "The more time you spend lollygagging around, the closer that thing gets to us! You need to find a way out of here... now!"

"Wait," Kyousuke said, looking around. He noticed hundreds of people roaming through the streets: Businessmen, women, children all just strolling around as though they couldn't see what was baring down on them. Cars drove by, people talked on cell phones, mothers carted their infants around in strollers, children chased each other through a park. It was as though it was just an ordinary day to them. On top of it all, Kyousuke had absolutely no idea where he was.

"Where the hell am I?" he asked the man who greeted him, "What is this place?"

"Don't you recognize it?!" the man growled, "You built this place yourself, yet you mean to tell me you don't remember a thing about it?!? How immature are you?!"

"Look - I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" Kyousuke barked back at him.

"Christ, Kyousuke! Don't you realize where you are?!" the man ranted on rhetorically, "You're inside your own head!"

Kyousuke stood there, perturbed by the man's words.

"Everything you see, everything around you, is a by-product of a memory which you cropped out from one dimension, and implanted here in this mind!" he raged to Kyousuke. "In other words, before you were given the Konso to proceed onto the Soul Society, you took a photo of a single memory in your mind, tucked it away and carried it with you when you passed on. Then, when you were reborn in the Soul Society, you subconsciously rebuilt that memory into your head - where it never belonged!"

"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" the man asked the dumbfounded Shinigami. "This place, these people, me, we don't belong here. All of it is something which should have been left behind and buried for you to proceed into your new life within the Soul Society. However, somehow you managed to copy a memory so precisely that the second you were reborn, you reconstructed the entire thing in a blink. What I still can't figure out is how you've managed to maintain it here without destroying yourself or the Soul Society."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Kyousuke asked him.

The man exhaled a long sigh, shoving his hand back into his pocket. "We're wasting time with all of this," he muttered incoherently. "You learned in the Academy that Plus Souls cannot pass on to the Soul Society through Konso if they still have some connection to the World of the Living, right?"

Kyousuke bowed his head in a quiet nod

"There's a reason for that; it can create a tear between dimensions." the man explained, leading Kyousuke to further understand the graveness of his actions, "Some souls, before they pass on, will attempt to keep a memory of something or someone they hold dear just before they cross over the border separating the living from the dead. But this is supposed to be impossible, since the memories of one life can upset the balance of the next, creating a possible wound within time itself. A paradox. So the Chain of Fate shackles them to their connection, preventing this from ever-occurring -- that is until now..."

"Until now?" Kyousuke repeated, earning a sharp glare from the blonde-haired man.

"You have breached that barrier, Kyousuke," he said grimly. "Somehow, you've managed to manipulate time and space itself - the realm of the afterlife, by slipping a single memory of a past life into this one."

Kyousuke's eyes swelled into saucers and a chill ran up his spine. If he heard correctly, and if what this man was telling him was true, then he had become the universe's sole destroyer. He wanted to deny it; he wanted to claim that maybe he was mistaken about something, but it all made too much sense to not be true, and deep down, he felt it. He had been able to feel it for years now -- a wound, a scar buried deep in a place he could not reach. How was this all possible, he wondered.

Suddenly, he had a revelation of his own; something which didn't completely add up.

"No. That can't be right," he muttered, shaking his head.

The man tilted his head in curiosity, "What do you mean?"

"It still doesn't make sense," Kyousuke continued, "I've been to the Academy. I've been through the training in the Soul Society. Everything still exists and goes on like normal, so how is it possible for me to have created a tear between the two dimensions? We would all be dead right now!"

"So simply because you can't see it means that it can't exist?" the man replied, scoffing under his breath, "Don't be such a simpleton. Like I said, I don't know how you've managed it, but somehow you've been able to contain the memory here without completely destroying the border. Rather than tear through the barrier between this world and the world of the living, you snuck past it."

This caught Kyousuke by surprise as well. He listened closely to the stranger who seemed to have gained a powerful understanding of both himself and the Soul Society.

"After you embedded the memory within yourself, you managed to forget it was even there. Which in turn allowed you to not only break the Chain of Fate, but also permitted you to receive the Konso from the Shinigami," the stranger continued. "However, this didn't come without its consequences. The barrier between both dimensions has still been damaged. But rather than create a gaping hole in the barrier, you simply caused a rift in it."

"A rift?" Kyousuke mumbled.

"But that doesn't mean that simply because you're here now and everything seems fine that it is. Think of it as a remote-activated bomb; where you are the bomb, and a single word or action is the trigger," the man warned. "The reason you don't know who I am, or anyone else here, is because you deliberately chose to forget us without completely wiping us from your memory. Although, should you happen to remember one single, solitary thing in or about this place... the bomb, you, will explode, and everything in both this world and the world of the living will be completely obliterated."

The adolescent Shinigami just stood there, speechless. There was a world of guilt, shame and confusion on his shoulders, and he was struggling to hold it all up without collapsing to his knees. Basically, what this man was telling him was that the fate of this world, as well as the fate of the living world now rested in the palm of his hand. One slip, and he would destroy it all.

'Damn it! Talk about a heavy burden!'

"But the one thing that has me baffled the most, Kyousuke, is how you were even able to be born in the Soul Society," the man said, interrupting his thoughts. Kyousuke gazed across to him, befuddled.

"What do you mean?"