Main POV

Ichigo stood halfway down the open air corridor after stepping out of the Captain's meeting. I'm not sure I really got much from that, or if they did either. The whole situation was uncomfortable. I think it was mostly so everyone could see me should I try to make a break for it. Or the more logical, so they could make an initial assessment and decide on what they thought about my story themselves.

"Well that wasn't so bad," Ichigo said. "You think you'll go an see someone to try get your memories back?"

"You still think I really was attacked?" I asked, starting walking again and looking over my shoulder at him. He stayed where we'd stopped while he answered.

"Look, I believe you when you say you don't think you were, but that amount of blood raises questions. How did kido cause that large of a cut? You said yourself it didn't hurt right away, that it was only after you woke up you were in pain. And that walking through the kido initially felt like water. So isn't it at least possible you were attacked? Maybe they took your memories after they did, and that's why you can't remember."

"It's possible," I agreed, stopping and turning to face him. "I see where you're coming from. But even if I was attacked, I really think I shouldn't do it. What if it means they find out about where I'm really from?"

"And so what if they do?" he asked.

"Because that means I'm just like them," I replied. He sighed and closed the space between us. He took hold of my arms, holding me close.

"No it doesn't," he told me. "You prove time and time again you're nothing like them. No one sees you as the bad guy."

"But they might," I said.

"They won't," he assured. "Now come on, enough lurking in this corridor, let's go inside," he said and lead me around the corner and into the room I'd seen Rangiku and Izuru head into. The door opened up to reveal a long table filled with 12 of the 13 lieutenants and I figured since Rukia got promoted, that was a given. Renji looked up and beamed at us and Ikkaku offered me a wink. At least things were still the same with us.

"Hey, there's the happy couple now," Renji grinned. "We were just complaining about you."

"Can I join?" I asked, immediately sitting down next to him. "I just found out I'm an even bigger pain in the ass than I once thought."

"Well you're not going to take this news I have for you well," he laughed. Ichigo sat in the free chair across from us.

"What do you guys even do at lieutenants meetings?" I asked looking around. "This looks way more fun than what we just went through, that was an ordeal."

"These are pretty boring too," Ikkaku assured me. "But we talk about other shit after and that lightens things up a little."

"Come up with any good strategies on how to stop these guys?" Ichigo asked him. Ikkaku looked serious again and they started chatting quietly. I turned to Renji, desperate look on my face, he looked back concerned.

"They're never going to stop," I found myself whispering.

"Don't talk like that, we're going to ge.."

"No, Renji, you don't understand," I said. I thought back to what that guy had said in the sewers. I sighed. I really didn't want to get into this in a room full of people I barely knew. "Never mind, I'll tell you later..." He looked at me like he was going to argue for a moment before nodding.

The rest of the afternoon Ichigo and I were passed from place to place, spoke to various people and eventually settled on our final resting place for the day. I didn't pay much attention to any of it, I was far too wrapped up in my own thoughts. A heard of elephants could have stampeded through the streets of the seireitei, broken out into the national anthem and then participated in a flash mob and I wouldn't have noticed.

I was perched on the immaculate deck outside Division 10, staring out at the horizon. The sun was hanging low in the sky, almost setting, leaving the clouds to be dusted in pinks and yellows. It was so warm looking it almost made you forget it was winter. The air was crisp on my skin, but like everything else today, I paid it no mind. I didn't know what to do. My heart ached, I knew more killing had to go ahead. I couldn't see another way out. These guys couldn't be imprisoned, no way we'd be able to capture them, their strategy seemed more 'victory or death' and even then, what were we supposed to do, throw them in the Rat's Nest where Mayuri used to, and frankly still should, live? Toss them in with Aizen? And we couldn't send them back to my world, even if we had the means, which thanks to me we didn't.

I heard footsteps on the deck and I was filled with dread. I loved Ichigo very much, but his supportiveness, his upbeat attitude and his kind heart were driving me insane. Even if I could concentrate on talking to him, I wished he'd give me some space.

"As promised," Hitsugaya said and I sighed. Out of the corner of my eye he slid a large white pice of paper across the deck to me. I didn't give it much thought, I was still trying to figure out what to do. He waited there for a moment, watching me out of the corner of his eye. I hummed in acknowledgement hoping he'd leave me in piece. It seemed to work as he got up off the wooden floors and walked back to where he'd come from. I exhaled deeply in relief.

At some point in the day, Ichigo and I had received many invitations from various high ranking fiends of his for dinner tonight and I really didn't feel like going to any of them. I'm still not entirely sure how out of all the options, Captain Hitsugaya had won out. Though, I supposed while Renji made good company and we both adored him, Ichigo probably didn't really want to be around his Captain and the same went for Ikkaku. Hisagi's Captain invited us as well, but I think Ichigo ultimately decided on Hitsugaya for me. He knew I knew him well, more than Kensei, that's for sure. While he might have been my favourite Visord, we didn't know each other personally, and I was still very suspicious of the man.

The footsteps returned and Hitsugaya returned, sitting back down beside me but this time holding to steaming cups of Green Tea and a plate of candied beans. He sat watching the sky for a moment, cup steaming away beside him, beans untouched. The sky had faded from the yellows and dusty pinks to more of an orange and purple sky, sun falling harder and faster due to the season.

"You look more miserable here then you did knowing there was a ticking clock on your head, are you doing okay?" he asked after a while. I don't think I really heard him though. In truth, I was dying to talk to someone about what was going on but knowing the only person I could now was Ichigo, because Kisuke was a world away and no one else knew my secret.

"What's going on with you?" he tried again.

"I..I.." he'd caught me off guard with his slightly worried sounding demand. "I wasn't listening. Sorry. I've been in my head all day."

"I noticed," he replied. I looked to the side and picked up the piece of paper he'd slipped me. I needed something to fiddle with and this seemed the perfect distraction. He'd given me a map. I knew I'd demanded one on coming here, but I didn't think I'd actually get it. And I was far more detailed than the crummy circle with a cross on it that Ichigo had been given when he first invaded. This one had what I assume was all the streets and some pretty identifiable land marks. "I didn't think you'd actually get me one. Thanks.."

"It wasn't that difficult, Division 10 gives them to new recruits until they know their way around," he explained. "But I believe I asked you a question, Uotani."

I sighed. "It's nothing," I answered, knowing I couldn't really tell him what was wrong.

"We're friends Uotani, we might have only known each other a few months, but I know that much," he said. "There isn't anything you can't tell me. There's not anything you can say that will shock me, that will make me look at you differently or judge you. And nothing you can say where I won't support you and have your back. So is what's eating you up inside really so bad you can't tell me?"

I felt like I'd swallowed a rock. One of the people I most admired watching bleach was Hitsugaya. Because when I first started watching Bleach, I was just a kid, he was probably closest to my age and he was a badass. He wasn't like most anime and manga portrayed kids as, he wasn't whiny or immature. I admired that, I wanted to be that. I had my first crush on that. And here he was, a bit older, a lot wiser and telling me he was my friend. And I believed he meant what he said, I really did, but I also believed, he meant it before he knew what I had to tell him, and wouldn't after.

I chocked. I screwed my eyes shut. This was all to much, I'm only 20 for god's sake. I was still in high school 2 years ago. I'm so young and so many lives are in my hands, so much pressure is on my shoulders and I think I hold the fate of two worlds in my grasp. My hands started to shake and when I opened my eyes giant, hot tears spilled out over my cheeks.

"Yes," I sobbed.

"Uo," he said softly. "No problem is ever worth your tears. Please let me help you."

"I can't," I cried harder. "I can't put you in that position."

"Excuse me?" he sounded mad. "I am a Captain. I'm the one who gets to decide the positions I'm in, so believe me if I'm asking you to tell me what's going on so I can help you, then I have thought it through. What, did you murder someone? What's so bad, tell me!"

"Make it quick," I said, resigning myself to my fate. "When I'm done, if you have to kill me, get it done."

"Wait, did you murder someone?" he asked, a little shocked at my response. I laughed a little.

"No," I shook my head. "The only blood on my hands is those two guys from yesterday."

"Okay, so tell me," he said.

"I feel like I owe you this, even if I don't want to put you in such a position," I said. "And keeping this secret, one I've only told two other people if killing me, so finding someone knew to talk about it with, even if it's not for long, does make me feel a little better."

"Stop with the melodrama and get on with it," he rolled his eyes.

"I've been lying to you," I told him.

"So you were attacked.." he replied and I shook my head.

"At least not to my knowledges, Ichigo's pretty convinced with that amount of blood and that deep of a head wound that they did attack me and they either used memory replacement or I have amnesia either trauma based or from hitting my head," I explained. "They're never going to stop, you know? They're not going to stop trying to kill me as long as they live. And it's killing me to think it's me or them. We can't lock them up, and we can't let them keep doing what they're doing, they have to be stopped, even if they weren't trying to kill me. And I feel guilty, not just because two of them are dead because of me, but because they all have to go."

"It's not just the guilt though, is it?" Hitsugaya asked and I nodded.

"When I ran from Urahara's place, for some reason every time I run, I always end up there," I said. "I got to the alley Ichigo found me in and that's when he caught up with me, before I ended up in the sewers. I got him talking, I knew I couldn't fight him, I was hoping I could stall him. "I asked him, why he was trying to kill me, what he thought I took. I had my theories, Urahara and I talked it over. I'm part shinigami now. When the kido barrier broke, I died. Or, I would have, had the rift not saved me. I got knocked from my body, but the cut on my forehead, the rift was unstable, like we thought, and it absorbed it. And then when my body dropped, it reconnected with my spirit. And that's why they're after me. I have the rift in me and they want it back. Because they're not from here, they're from the other side."

"Uotani, I'm not going to look at you differently because of that... and none of that is your fault, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "Maybe don't tell Kurotsuchi about what happened though.."

"There's more," I told him. "I found out they're from the other side of the rift, and me absorbing it meant they couldn't go back to where they're from. You see, they created the rift, they use it to take energy from the human world, you know as well as I, Karakura is the reishi capital of the world right now. Their side of the rift has no, magic or demon arts, no spiritual energy, no life after death even. Just ordinary men. They live and they die and that's it. There's no great balance, no spirit king and no seireitei. And I suspect the reason they all smell so bad is because they're long past their expiration date. They're using the rift's energy to artificially create more than just power, they're using it for eternal life. And since I absorbed the rift I took away that, their clock is ticking so they wanna kill me to get the rift back."

"Again, not your fault," he told me.

"But what I was so worried about, the thing I've been hiding this long is how I know what their wold is like," I said. "I'm from that world too."

"What?" he asked.

"Where I come from, this world is just a story. Some guy called Tite Kubo came up with the idea, wrote a manga about it and a TV company designed for teenage boys picked it up and made it an anime. I used to watch it with my older brother, I clung to it after he went missing, eat, sleep, breathe, repeat. It was all I had, when I was walking home one day and I saw a black butterfly in an alley, I laughed to myself, joking about it being a hell butterfly. I didn't think there was anything weird about how heavy the air felt, just that it was rain coming on. And when I slammed face first into the kido barrier I didn't think it anything other than psychological because kido doesn't exist where I'm from. And then I was on the ground, and the main character was staring down at me, concern filled his eyes, I thought it was psychotic delusion. Everything had, and still does, have a cartoon-y filter over it and I assumed it was a concussion or a dream. And then it wasn't, and then I was terrified because I was stuck here. I thought, maybe it's a coma dream or maybe I'm dead and this is purgatory. And then I find out that as far as I know, this is real, and now I have to live here, and I have no way to get back, to the people who need me. And I wanna tell someone, but I don't want to look like a psychopath. And there's Ichigo, the boy who's had his life turned upside down, time and time again and always bounced back stronger. He's the only person I can think of that would possibly believe me. And he does. But then I'm terrified again because I think, should anyone else find out where I'm from I'm a deadman. Because you're here, looking for what that energy was that passed through the rift, and you seem pretty intent on killing it. And, had I been through everything this world has recently, I wouldn't even think twice about it. But I didn't I'm me, a scared little girl. Because god, I'm practically a child compared to everyone here. I'm barely 20, I still lived at home with my parents and I've never done anything and now I have to deal with all this. And those old guys add to it by trying to kill me, putting my friends lives at risk and I can't even tell them why. And they deserve to know, to know what they're fighting for."

"Do you honestly think if they all knew, they would chose not to?" Histugaya answered. "That's certainly a lot to take in, and I can't blame you for not knowing who to trust. If you loved that show as much as you said you did, you'd know all of us, but you'd never met a single one. Never known how they'd react to meeting you. And I'm glad you know everything about me, and decided that we could be friends. And now I know more about you, I'm making the same choice I did before I knew. We're still friends Uotani, and I'll keep your secret. Thank you for telling me."

"What?" I asked, shocked.

"But I'm very curious now, what going to see someone from Division 4 would do," he said. "It could reveal a lot more, and even if you weren't attacked, we could still get a lot more information on that night. Please, when you go, tell me what you remember. Maybe then we can work out a way to win this thing."

"What?" I echoed.

"We're friends, Uo, I meant it when I said that. I'll keep all your secrets, you can tell me anything," he said. "But if it's something about Kurosaki, I'd rather you didn't..." I laughed.

"You got it," I told him.

"Now, is that all that's bothering you?" he asked, and I nodded.

"For now at least," I smiled.

"Good, now drink up, your tea is getting cold," he told me and I smiled softly.

I picked up the still warm pottery and sipped it. Somehow, all this talking in the winter air had cooled it to exactly the right temperature. I watched as he then went on to demolish the plate of candied beans and chuckled to myself. I stared out at the sky, sun having long since sank in the sky and it had turned a dark grey and navy. I sipped on my tea idly, feeling a lot lighter now since I talked about it. And I imagine I could have gotten here with Ichigo eventually, but having someone new to share the secret with made me feel a little safer too. Hitsugaya had reacted exactly as Ichigo had assured me he would all those months ago, and I should have listened. But I feel like I wouldn't have the connection I did, have the reaction I did, if I hadn't have waited until now. Ichigo could tell me he told me so later.

"You guys about ready for dinner?" I head and we turned to see Ichigo and Rangiku standing in the doorway to the barracks. I smiled at him, nodding. I got up, helping Toshiro with the crockery and we headed over to our companions. Hitsugaya and Rangiku walked ahead, headed for the mess hall and I hung back a few steps with Ichigo. I smiled up at him, feeling the dry slat tracks crack on my face as I did.

"You were right," I told him.

"I knew I would be," he said, as if he knew what we'd just been talking about. "What'd he say."

"He's still my friend and he's going to help me and keep my secret," I said. He smiled.

"I figured he would, I'm glad you chose him," he said. "I may or may not have had a little influence of your decision, I hope you don't mind."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I figured you'd either tell Renji, your roommate and guard dog you're so fond of, Hitsugaya, your first crush, or the curve ball, Kensei because he's a visiord and isn't completely loyal to the seireitei because they cast him aside for all those years. Now, Renji you wouldn't have been able to get the right moment with because of Byakuya, Kensei if you did manage to get a moment around Shuhei and Mashiro, you barely know him. Not personally. So, who else than your good friend, Toshiro Hitsugaya. So I picked him for dinner tight," he said, sounding very proud of himself.

"You're too much like me now," I commented. "That's a straight up Uo move, maybe even and Urahara one. It's disturbing, we're going to have to break up. I'm going to have to get back together with my husband Toshiro." He started laughing, thinking back to the jokes we'd made when we all went ice skating together.

"I thought you'd be jumping at the opportunity now you're in the same world to marry your one true love, Kenpachi," he said and I laughed.

"Don't give me ideas," I said. "If I really did marry him those old guys wouldn't stand a chance. It'd be over before it even started."