Title: The Way to Salvation

Series: Bleach

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Dedication: For Justine.

Character(s)/Pairings: Rukia, Aaroniro Aluluerie, Aizen, Miyako; Kaien/Rukia

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Rukia did end up saving Kaien. It just wasn't the way that she expected to.

Warnings: This is a slightly darker fic, as it looks into what it means to be a Hollow and what it means to have a Zanpaktou cut through the mask.

To be a Hollow is to feel despair.

To be a Hollow is to lose all chance of happiness.

To be a Hollow is to lose the most essential part of the soul – the heart.

To be a Hollow is to remember everything that ever made you happy, and to have the knowledge that you can never achieve that happiness ever again.

Some might wonder why the Hollows allied themselves to Aizen, a Soul Reaper, a former enemy. But it was quite simple, really. Aizen promised to make the burning stop. It was too great an offer to refuse.

Masks were an essential part of being a Hollow. They hid your identity from the world, so that the Hollow could only be viewed as a random monster that ran around and ate the hearts of all of their victims in an attempt to fill up the emptiness inside. The moment was always short-lived and the hole in the chest remained. It was a continuous cycle that couldn't be stopped.

But now, Aizen-sama was telling the Hollows to remove their masks. Remove the mask and you will regain all that you lost, he promised. So masks were pulled off, revealing the identity underneath. Power that they have never experienced before rushed through them and for a time the former Hollows were appeased. They have become Arrancar and the burning is over.

It did not take long for the illusion to end, and the pain came back worse than before.

Sex was turned to, in an effort to stop the pain. It became a drug among the more humanoid Arrancar. It only worked for a few moments before that fleeting reminder of the joy they had once experienced as Wholes disappeared and the burning returned.

The burning was as much a part of the Arrancars as it had been for the Hollows. Only now it seemed even worse.

As he watched all of these children walk around him, each full of their own personal despair, the Espada known as Aaroniro Aluluerie, felt only scorn for these fools. They knew nothing of despair. They had not consumed three hundred of their brethren. They were not being burned alive every minute of their lives (Of course, he had had offers from numerous female Arrancars for a quick tumble after all he is one of the Espada. However, each and every one was rejected. There was always something that just wasn't quite right with each one – this one was too tall, that one didn't have blue eyes, and that one had too light hair). And so, he sat back and he laughed as each of his brethren tried to fight the flames from within with flames of a different kind. What they needed was water and ice, but he'd never tell them that.

So, instead he dreamt of laughing blue eyes in the face of a young girl, who clasped his hand and pulled him along as she ran ahead into the unknown. And all he could think of was how he longed to posses this being that shone with such light.

He finally learned what she was running towards when she entered Aizen-sama's realm one fateful day.

She came with four other companions, but he could barely pay them any attention, so fixated was he on the way that she glided through Aizen-sama's halls, the way that her hair shone under the light. And despite Aizen-sama's orders, Aaroniro Aluluerie did not resist the siren's call as she ran straight into his own quarters.

It is fate that they should meet.

It is also fate that he should kill her.

It felt like he has been bound to the wheel of fate and that he could no longer control his own actions. One part of him wanted to choke the life out of her with his hands, and the other part… the other part was unspeakable. But he no longer has a choice in what he does. Fate had already decreed what he must do.

And just like that, it was all over and she was gone. Gone wherever dead Soul Reapers go. And he had lost all chance he ever had of possessing her. The flames threatened to over come him, and all he could do was laugh as everything he ever wanted fell to ash before his eyes.

It stopped being fate when a trembling hand reached out and grabbed the staff of Nejibana. Ice formed around her fingertips and spread down the length of Nejibana.

"You're still alive?" Amazement ran through him, and suddenly he was unsure of how far he would be able to go. Her spirit was too great for him – it had always been too great for him, ever since that moment he first set his eyes on her, when he had been a Soul Reaper himself.

Her hand left his Zanpaktou to grab the hilt of her own. The broken Shirayuki was pointed at his head, and her eyes stared into his and he could no longer breathe.

"Hakuren."

He didn't even have a chance to blink before the flames were covered with ice, and the reality that he never wanted her to see was displayed before her eyes… Those beautiful eyes…

"You may have gotten Kaien-dono's Soul and Body," she spat out. "But I inherited his heart. Now die, you bastard."

The last thought of that one head before it split in half was that she finally got it – the truth that he had been missing all these years.

They both fell to the ground, and he was only just able to break her fall, before his body started to dissolve. That last part of his rapidly dissolving spirit hung on to life, just to see if the girl still breathed.

Around him, he could see hundreds of pale ghosts – Wholes, who had once been a part of him. They stand around the girl in a protective circle, and gaze down at her as she struggled to live.

He knew that his time was running out, and he knew that the girl must be saved at all costs. For his own sake, mostly. He wanted her to live, even though he knew now that he would never be able to gain the heart that he had been longing for all this time. He knew that she had come for Aizen-sama's latest pet, and so with the last of his remaining power, he sent out all of his memories of his final battle, hoping against hope that this pet would rebel for the girl who had given up everything that they might have had, for her friend.

And because he couldn't resist one last jab at the man who had caused him to forget what he really wanted, he screamed out:

"AIZEN-SAMA! AIZEN-SAMA! YOU PROMISED THAT THE BURNING WOULD STOP!"

And then, it was all over.

The burning was gone forever.

A wind passed through the room, and all that was once Aaroniro Aluluerie faded away, leaving only a bleeding girl who struggled to cling to her fleeing lifeline.

"Kaien-dono…?"

"Speak up Kuchiki."

"Kaien-dono… what do you think it feels like when a Hollow is purified?"

"What brought this question on?"

"…Um. I'm just curious…"

"Bull. What's the real reason Kuchiki?"

"That is the real reason, Kaien-dono."

"Uh huh. Well, if you don't tell me, I'm going to have to force it out of you."

"HUH?!"

"Surrender the answer Kuchiki, or I'll tickle you."

"You wouldn't."

"Do you doubt the seriousness of my threat?"

"…"

"I'll give you to count of five Kuchiki, and then I'm carrying out my threat – one."

"Kaien-dono…"

"Is that a threatening tone I hear? Two. Three."

"You're cheating."

"Four. What was that? Fi-"

"I WANT TO KNOW WHY THAT HOLLOW HAD A SMILE ON HIS FACE WHEN I KILLED HIM!"

"… Kuchiki… You remember how the Zanpaktou is supposed to make the Hollow a Plus spirit again, right?"

"…Yes."

"Think of it as something precious that was lost for a very long time being returned to you. Can you imagine what that would feeling like?"

"Kaien dono…"

"Kaien. Kaien. Wake up."

He opened his eyes, expecting to see one woman, and finding another. "Miyako…?"

She smiled down at him, and brushed his bangs from his face. "Hello Kaien. I've missed you."

He stared at her, barely able to register that this was Miyako – Miyako, alive and well – before him. He reached up and touched her face. "Miyako. You're alive."

She laughed. "Not quite. Rather, you've come to me. How are you feeling?"

"How would it feel, Kuchiki?"

"I think that it would have to be the most beautiful feeling in the whole world."

He placed a hand over his eyes to hide the droplets of water that fell down his face.

Back in another time and place, Kuchiki Rukia raised herself up from the position she had fallen to on the ground and gripping her broken blade tightly in her hand, she continued on her journey.

Tears made an icy trail down her cheeks, but for what reason, she knew not.