Song of the Rain Bell (Bleach Fanfiction)

At the Sogyoku, he hoped the person who stepped out of the gateway between worlds would wear the familiar smile he knew so well. He pictured the wind sweeping past and lifting her sky-blue hair, as they welcomed an eternity together in the faint light. But instead, a bloodstained white robe stumbled into his arms. Sunlight stung Sakura's tear-filled eyes, and the lips that had promised they would never part until their hair turned white trembled as she said, "Byakuya, I don't want to die." Beneath the dome of Las Noches, they met again: plain clothes and blue hair, as if from another lifetime. Everything before their parting in death rose before him like a dream, like a bubble. She turned and met his gaze. The eightfold cherry blossoms blooming in her eyes held the familiar look he knew so well, the look she gave to strangers. He heard her ask, "Who are you?" Back then, to him, she was the one he loved with all his heart. Yet when she entered his dreams and explored his past, she saw two people leaning against each other before a plum tree in winter. Time froze her eyes, and, kneeling alone in an empty palace, she came to understand the void left behind by their parting in death. Now, she is his wife. She does not understand the sudden wedding, the passerby who seems so familiar, or the sorrow and affection in his eyes as he sits across the desk from her. She does not understand the pain in her chest when she sees him gravely wounded and near death. Nor does she understand herself, still caught between loving him and not loving him even after giving him the blood from her heart.