Sunset in Heaven

Chapter 24

Byakuya could feel his body trembling at the sight of the person he loved deeply lying on the cold ground in a pool of his own blood. He immediately knelt and gently took the younger man in his arms.

He closed his eyes shut and hugged Ichigo tightly when he felt that the teen was still alive. He was still breathing... barely. He's alive. The noble sighed in relief as he carried the younger man in his arms and put Ichigo in a more secured room. He then carried the unconscious Nel in the same room and treated the two of them with his own kido.

Nel didn't receive many wounds except for the deep gash on her forehead from when Kariya threw her away with pure power. It was easily healed since Nel was regenerating quickly. Ichigo, on the other hand...

"Ichigo..." He voiced quietly as he gazed at the younger male in worry and remorse, cupping the teen's cold cheek in his large hand. He wiped away the blood on the younger male's mouth in the process.

If only he'd been a little more careful in his fight with Tsukishima... then he wouldn't have been put under the man's control for too long... He would've been able to help Ichigo in the Taichou's fight with Kariya...

He knew it would damage his pride if he would voice anything right now but he still wanted the teen to hear his apology, even if Ichigo couldn't actually hear it. "I apologize for my weakness, Ichigo..."

Byakuya didn't know how much time passed or how long he'd been healing Ichigo's body but there's more than one thing that confused and made him worry. It seemed Ichigo's wounds were much worse than how they appeared... He couldn't understand why there was too much internal bleeding and too many internal wounds when Ichigo was strong enough to block the attacks from Kariya. It's as if... Ichigo's body had bled from some other unknown source and not from Kariya's attacks alone... There was also the fact that some of the wounds seemed older than a day now. It meant that it wasn't really acquired from the fight with Kariya or even the mission in Hueco Mundo... Did that mean that Ichigo was wounded the entire time while they were doing the mission?

Not to mention that the teen seemed distracted during the fight. He couldn't see Ichigo's fight since he was also busy fighting Tsukishima. But basing from the teen's quiet fluctuation of reiatsu, the noble deduced that something was bothering Ichigo deeply.

It annoyed Byakuya to think that he was close enough to the teen to observe things and yet Kenpachi seemed to know more about Ichigo than him. It hurt him that he didn't know anything at all. It hurt him more since it meant that Ichigo didn't trust him as much as he trusted the teen.

He looked at Ichigo's face then. He brushed a strand of hair out of the teen's face and slowly leaned in to kiss the teen's forehead. Relief flooded his heart when the teen sighed quietly in his sleep. It seemed Ichigo was a lot better now.

"Ichigo..." He voiced softly just as he leaned down this time to kiss Ichigo's slightly parted lips. The kiss was brief and gentle, only lasting a second before Byakuya sat once again and continued healing the teen. Even he himself was slightly surprised at the fact that he dared kiss Ichigo without the latter's knowledge, not to mention while the latter was unconscious and weak. He felt guilty about it but he's not regretful. After all, he only let out a little of the frustrations and worry building up really nicely inside him.

'I can't believe I have a very perverted master and I haven't even realized it until now.' Senbonzakura's voice somehow made the noble flinch inwardly and Byakuya couldn't help but clear his throat, obviously forgetting about his zanpakutou's existence for a moment.

"Your trivial comments are not needed." Byakuya voiced out loud, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he resumed healing Ichigo's wounds. There wasn't any visible wound now but Byakuya knew that the teen's internal organs were still very much damaged, not to mention the healing rate was impossibly slower than how Shinigamis normally heal. Ichigo... really, what happened to you..?