#flashfire: the heart of gold

[ray-fantasia]

a redesign for a character from an old project (I'm using him for artfight)

[melonthesprigatito]

Timeline of Starter Choices (But With Plushies)

Only counting the games where I first picked the Pokémon in (eg yes I played Crystal, Sapphire etc I just played the remakes first)

Pokémon White (October 2013) (First ever Pokémon game)

First Playthrough Nickname: WATERBLAST

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Aqua

Pokémon Pearl (November 2013)

First Playthrough Nickname: SNOWFLAKE

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Peppy

Other Nicknames that were used once: Bubbles, Icebreaker

Pokémon Heart Gold (January 2014)

First Playthrough Nickname: BLOSSOM

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Blossom

White 2: (Sometime 2014)

First Playthrough Nickname: LEAFSTORM

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Rose

Other Nicknames that were used once: HOLLY, Fleur de Lis

Alpha Sapphire: (Christmas Day 2014)

First Playthrough Nickname: LEAFBLADE

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Emerald

Other Nicknames that were used once: Petal

X (Boxing Day 2014)

First Playthrough Nickname: LUCKYCHARM

Most Recent Playthrough Nickname: Lucky Charm

Other Nicknames that were used once: Mystic

Moon (Christmas Day 2016) and Ultra Moon (Christmas Day 2017)

Nickname for first playthrough and most recent playthrough: Marine (unchanged)

Nicknames I was considering but immediately dropped when I saw Primarina in the trailers because I thought it didn't fit Primarina: Poptart

Omega Ruby: (Christmas Day 2018)

First and most recent playthrough nickname: Ruby (unchanged)

Sword (Christmas Day 2019)

First playthrough nickname: Flashfire

Most recent playthrough nickname: Spitfire

Let's Go Eevee (January 2020)

First playthrough nickname: Cinnamon

Most recent playthrough nickname: Sprinkles

Legends Arceus (January 2022)

First and most recent playthrough nickname: Cinder (unchanged)

Scarlet: (Christmas Day 2022)

First and most recent playthrough nickname: Melon (unchanged)

[rayshippouuchiha]

I don't know if anyone has asked this yet. But what is Itachi's reaction for the Sasuke Dies AU?

The air of the Dansu Plains has a salty tang to it, sea-salt flavoring the air as it wafts inland from the Gold Sea. It's so different from the thick decaying heat of Itachi's childhood. So far from the way every breath in Konoha draws in the scent of Hashirama-sama's trees and the sweet, almost peppery aroma of the fire-lilies that litter the village proper.

They were, as the stories go, Mito-sama's favorite flower and so Hashirama-sama had made sure they were plentiful in his Uzumaki wife's new home.

For all that a part of him will always miss Konoha and those he left behind there, Itachi has found a certain sort of tranquility in the travels his mission has taken him on. And, if there's nothing else, the sea air is easier to breathe, softening the ache in his chest by noticeable degrees.

Beside him on the path they've been walking through the waist-high seagrass, Kisame grumbles just a bit as he adjusts the lay of Samehada on his back.

He, as Itachi well knows by now, will always prefer the cooler waters and the salt breezes that flow off through air closer to Kiri.

And then, between one step and the next, Itachi's entire world shifts.

"Aniki."

The word, barely a whisper, floats by Itachi's ear, the feel of fingertips on his forehead a ghost of a sensation that strikes him to the core.

Itachi freezes for a split second before he whirls around, his heart pounding out a thick, heavy rhythm that threatens to rattle his ribs.

"Itachi?" Kisame rumbles at his side, Samehada now firmly in hand.

Itachi ignores him, Sharingan blazing as he searches their surroundings.

But there's nothing there, the plains empty except for the two of them. Even the wildlife has been driven away by their presence.

"Itachi," Kisame repeats, voice slightly softer than before. "You're crying."

Itachi barely hears him, barely realizes he's moving until his fingertips come away from his face wet with tears.

Something in his chest twists sharply, something animal keens and writhes in the very depths of his soul.

There, standing in the middle of the path, face wet with tears and a phantom whisper still echoing in his ears, Itachi falls to his knees.

Around him the world drifts away.

~~~

By the time Itachi comes back to awareness, the sun has begun to set. The light turns the leaves of the small copse of trees Kisame had obviously carried him to blood red. The blurriness of his vision makes them look like globs of heatless fire.

It would have been beautiful to him once, would have invoked thoughts of Konoha in deep summer. Would have set off the flashfire sort of memory connections so characteristic of the Sharingan. Would have started a cascade of images and sense memories.

The memory of the molten glow of festival lanterns and the sound of high-pitched but delighted laughter. The sweet taste of daifuku snuck to him late at night by a mother with slender, calloused hands and a softer smile. Of tiny fingers tugging at his shirt hem as wide dark eyes stared up at him in awe.

Once it would have rippled out across his mind, drowning him in memories it had taken months of heavy training to learn to catalog in seconds.

It doesn't matter though, not anymore, not now that what is left of Itachi's heart is officially broken.

Shattered beyond all healing, blackened at the very roots.

"You back with me?" Kisame asks from across the small campfire that's settled between them as he leans forward to tend the small set of spits settled near the flames.

The scent of roasting flesh thickens the air around them, some sea bird or another fallen prey to Kisame's hunger no doubt.

Itachi waves the offer off when Kisame holds one out in his direction.

Food has no purpose for him now.

The dead do not eat and Itachi's body has been dying in finger lengths for years now.

It seems as if his soul has finally caught up.

There's silence between the two of them for long heavy moments, only the crackling of the fire and the soft sound of Kisame's chewing to be heard.

"I loved my village," Itachi speaks up, head tilted back against the bark of the tree Kisame had leaned him up against and eyes turned up towards the sky.

Across from him Kisame goes completely still.

"Loved it enough to do horrible, terrible things in its name," Itachi continues, "and to know I would die in its service as all shinobi one day must."

Itachi takes a moment.

"I loved my village," he finally repeats, voice barely a whisper. "Loved it enough to slaughter my Clan in its name."

His mother had smiled when he'd cut her down, proud of him even in his lowest moment. Fugaku had been stoic even in the face of death but on his worst days Itachi likes to think there'd been forgiveness of a kind in his eyes as well.

"The only thing I have ever loved more in my entire existence," Itachi presses forward, "was Sasuke."

Wide dark eyes and pale skin, a gap-toothed smile and puffed-out cheeks. The only purity Itachi has known since he was four and blood seeped in around the edges of his existence.

The one who was to be Itachi's ultimate condemnation and redemption all in one.

"I am a traitor to the Akatsuki," Itachi tells him bluntly, ruthlessly. "All I have ever done has been in service of Konoha."

"What," Kisame starts slowly, "exactly are you saying?"

"The truth," Itachi replies. "Finally I speak nothing but the truth, my friend. I have loved my village with everything I am, through blood and bone and death. But there is a rot lurking deep inside of it. A blackness hiding in the roots. Someone needs to burn it out before it can spread any further."

"I feel like there's a question in there somewhere," Kisame points out, always so quick-witted and perceptive. Always far more than what most would see when they look at him.

Deceptive in the brutality of his appearance just as the fragility of Itachi's own had always been a lie.

It had served them well as partners, their complementary personalities and skillsets.

Itachi hopes it will serve them well in what is yet to come.

"You were willing to slaughter for the Akatsuki," Itachi says. "To cut through any who stand in the way of our task. Would you be willing to do so for me instead? Would you be willing to follow me off of the path we have been traveling down together?"

"You're asking me to defect from the Akatsuki and help you what? Cleanse Konoha of corruption?" Kisame huffs out a bark of laughter.

"Yes," Itachi answers calmly.

"You know this might just be suicide don't you? Even for us?" Kisame asks him wryly.

It is not, Itachi notes, an actual refusal.

"Sasuke is dead, Kisame," Itachi replies, the words thick and heavy on his tongue. "Death will be a blessing."

[sellyoursoulforagoodfic]

Wrath and Rage

Wrath x reader

Word Count: 1762

Summary: Wrath already had a queen when he was summoned to Emilia’s side. Needless to say she wasn’t happy about his absence. 

Note: He’s hot, and I had a plot bunny. don’t worry about it

You didn’t bother to hide the laugh that bubbled up from your throat at what your husband just told you. “So you got spooked and dropped your knife, is that it?”

Those golden eyes of his seemed to glow with irritation as he looked over at you. “Well, I don’t exactly want humans to know I’m around, now do I?”

This time you scoffed. “If some little witch managed to figure out that she’d just laid eyes on Prince Wrath himself based on that teensy little interaction, I’d want to meet her and shake her hand.”

“But the knife--”

“Is no indication of who you are on its own, and you damn well know it.” You slid your hands down the front of his shirt, fingers deftly opening it button by button. “Relax, my darling. You’ve been running around like a chicken with your head cut off about this whole Pride thing for so long. I’ve hardly seen you in weeks.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

You did. The trips never took very long at all, after all, but you still missed him. Before this it’d been centuries since he’d been away from you in the human world for any real length of time. “Be that as it may . . .” You slid the shirt off of him and allowed your fingers to trail down the golden snake on his left arm, a mark that had an exact twin on your own skin. “All you have to do,” you kissed that shoulder, “in order to keep Pride’s whole search,” this kiss was to his neck, “a secret,” jaw, “is get it back before the little witch does anything stupid.” That last bit was whispered next to his ear.

Then his lips were suddenly on yours, as demanding as ever as he shoved you against the wall. He tugged at the laces to your pants while his lips moved to your neck.

“See what you miss when you’re--” your teasing voice cut off when the heat of his body suddenly disappeared, “gone.” You opened your eyes. Sure enough, Wrath was nowhere to be found. Anger flared through you, its presence making the shadows writhe around you.

The only reason he would leave like that would be a summoning, something out of his control. And the only person dumb enough to summon a prince of Hell would be that. Fucking. Witch. Rage, the emotion your power stemmed from, swelled throughout your body.

She will pay for this.

~

Little did you know that in the human realm, your husband was thinking something similar. 

The combination of Emilia’s staring and the searing mark that’d appeared on his normally-clear arm set his teeth on edge. It shouldn’t be possible, a second betrothal spell in addition to the already fulfilled one he had with you--willingly, he might add--; yet there it was. Moon-shaped and clashing with his color scheme.

Still, he didn’t let on to what it truly meant. Odds were good that it wouldn’t amount to anything anyway, especially if he had a say. And if it did . . . Heaven help the woman that had to face the ire of the Queen of House Wrath.

~

In your time spent forcefully separated from each other, you and Wrath found yourselves weaving a complicated web to end this stupid endeavor in your favor, not the way Emilia wanted. And as soon as she agreed to marry Pride, your victory was sealed. Hours before that, when he’d died in the human realm, Wrath explained fully what had been going on since the messengers that’d been frantically flitting between you two could only convey so much, and you’d spent the time planning the final pieces of this battle of wits.

And enjoying each other’s company, but that was neither here nor there.

When it came time for Wrath to retrieve her, you lounged on the bed as he dressed, crown and all. “You can’t kill her when we return,” Wrath was saying while you watched him.

Your eyes moved to stare hatefully where their mark of betrothal used to reside. “I am aware,” you bit out.

“Are you?” There was an evil little smirk on his face when he turned to look at you. “Because your shadow seems to have other ideas.”

Sure enough, when you glanced down you saw that your shadow seemed to be holding a knife. Always the cause of your bad poker face, that thing. With a flare of gold in your eyes, you brought the shadow back under control, and it resumed being a silhouetted version of you, nothing more. The frown that’d been on your face since this mess started though, that stayed stubbornly in place.

Wrath took that as his cue to sweep closer elegantly, fingers trailing lightly down the golden body of the snake on your arm. “I swore to you the day we married that no one would ever come between us, did I not?”

“You did.” And Hell if your voice didn’t sound sullen despite yourself. You wanted to be unbothered by this. Truly, you did. But it was just so . . . unsettling to hear that someone had (however ignorantly) tried to steal him from you.

His free hand drifted over to grab the crown that still rested on the duvet. Your crown. The match to his own with spikes sharp enough to kill a man if you so chose. “Have I ever given reason for you to doubt that vow?”

“You haven’t.” That was true. A demon like Lust might have warranted such a fear, but Wrath was another kind of beast, an honest one. At least when it mattered. Mattered to you, that is. A warmth settled in your chest as your fingers moved to lightly hold his.

“Then why are you doubting me now?” his lips were pressed to your temple and he placed the crown on your head as he murmured the question.

Moments like this you remembered why you married him with perfect clarity. For the first time since he was stolen weeks ago a heat other than rage burned through you like a flashfire. “It’s not that I doubt you,” you said, turning so you could see his fierce, golden eyes. “It’s that I hate her.”

“Soon enough she will be Pride’s problem,” he soothed, “not ours.”

“Good,” you snarled before sealing your lips against his.

~

If Wrath’s lips were swollen suspiciously when he stepped out of the shadows to bring her to Pride, Emilia couldn’t work up the courage to comment on it. She was already in this mess with these demons so much deeper than she ever expected; she didn’t think her heart could take the stress of picking that particular fight on top of everything else. Besides, they weren’t bonded anymore; it wasn’t any of her business who he did or didn’t kiss.

Still, for some reason her heart stung at the thought of him with someone else after all they’d been through together.

But then they were bantering like it was all normal.

And then she was trying to scream in agony as it felt like someone lit her soul ablaze.

And then they were standing in a throne room steeped in black and gold and red.

This wasn’t House Pride, she realized abruptly. These were Wrath’s colors through and through.

“You’ll have to forgive the brief stop here,” a woman’s voice called Emilia’s attention to the front of the room. She was beautiful. Leather pants, a billowing shirt, boots that looked artfully worn-in, all steeped in nothing but black. The only spot of color in her wardrobe was the golden crown atop her head. A flash of gold on the back of her hand drew Emilia’s attention. “A prince of Hell like my husband can only travel directly from the human realm to his home. An envoy from Pride awaits outside to escort you to your Betrothed.”

Emilia’s ears started and were still ringing at the word ‘husband’ by the time she finished talking. The gold she’d noticed on her hand. It was an exact copy of the snake she’d seen on Wrath’s body the night she summoned him. Confusion lanced through her. “What--”

You laughed, cutting her off. This was rich. “You never stopped to wonder what the mark on his other arm was?” You rose from your seat, shadows coiling around your feet menacingly. “You’re dumber than I thought.”

Emilia could only stare at the approaching figure, alarmed by the casual display of power as well as the pitch black veil surrounding her that was every bit as threatening as the black and gold one around Wrath. She had to fight to retain any form of dignity and stay carefully neutral-faced when Wrath’s hand settled on the woman’s lower back in a display so casual it couldn’t have been faked.

“How terrible to meet you,” you scoffed. “You can call me Rage.”

A fitting emotion for such a terrifying queen, Emilia supposed.

“I think it goes without saying that if I ever see you lurking around my husband again, not even your betrothal to my brother-in-law will save you.”

Said husband had a look of evil smugness on his handsome face that made Emilia recoil a little. Then a thought occurred to her. “If you already have a queen, then why--”

“Was everyone pushing me to make it official with you?” Wrath cut her off, one eyebrow arching. “That answer is quite simple if you think about it.”

“Which is exactly why she hasn’t figured it out,” you smirked. “They don’t like me because I’m not intimidated by them just existing as princes of Hell.” You turned to face Wrath, loving the automatic way his eyes trailed over your form heatedly. He’d been worked up since the two of you dressed; there hadn’t been time to burn off some of the aggression that danced within both of you. “ Now,” you addressed her even as your hand moved to cup his face, thumb skimming along his cheekbone appreciatively, “you’ve robbed me of Wrath here for quite long enough on top of forcing me to singlehandedly deal with the idiocy of lower demons. You’re lucky I don’t kill you for the former, and I hate you even more for the latter, so kindly get the hell out of House Wrath.”

You didn’t spare the girl a glance as a guard moved to escort her out. No, you only had eyes for your husband . . . at least until your eyes closed when you dragged him down for a bruising kiss.

[magistriofficiorum]

So on my Spotify radio When the Day Met the Night by P!ATD came on and....Chase and Niamh (aka Sinshine...it’s a joke ship name but I’m starting to think of it in unironic terms girl help) have been living rent free, not paying utilities, not chipping in for groceries,even, for QUITE a long stint and I just feel vindicated since I published her profile after literally a year plus. So naturally: wordvom.

So uhhh enjoy this weird blurb I guess? And spoilers-ish kind of not really-nothing too big for the Shepherds of Haven alpha build. Chase is Lena’s ( @shepherds-of-haven ) rascal, Niamh is the she/her in question she’s really cute and this is my self-indulgent take on the start of Chase being Soft(tm) for Niamh and the start of so much denial.

——-

He pretended he didn’t notice.

He pretended he didn’t notice the way her hair shifted from copper to rose gold, how the iladrin in her eyes gave them the glow of firelight. He pretended he didn’t see how she alternated between shamed Diminished and stalwart Captain, sometimes forgetting she was the latter. He acted like he didn’t catch the playful gleam in her eye and the sincere, joyful smile she willingly gave when they joked. The feeling did not tug at him to make her smile more; there was no desire to see that beaming bright-as-the-sun grin that stunned him.

He didn’t think about how she jumped in puddles when no one was looking on rainy days of patrolling, of how she was fire in a fight, but all quiet questions and remarks that hit dead center. He didn’t think about the way her blush darkened her tawny skin down past the dip of her collarbone, or the curve of her waist and the feel of her against the hard planes of his chest squeezed together in a storage room. Funny, he had been a consummate professional at that moment, and the Captain couldn’t help but make a sassy little innuendo, backpedaling faster than a court jester riding a unicycle crossing a monster-filled moat when he called her bluff.

He didn’t catch how when she was nervous, her hand flew to the back of her covered neck, searching for a phantom pain to suppress. When she told him the why of it all, she showed him- bared her throat like an offering, like when wolves show deference. Her abridged secret spilled forth, the honesty blindsiding him, but more so, the unmistakable twinge of self-loathing he recognized in her voice.

He didn’t linger on how their eyes would meet for just a moment too long- too long for friends, certainly. But she was earnest (so damn earnest) in her claim that he was one.

He didn’t dwell on the fact she had the brain of a hustler but the most gentle, solid gold heart. Unwilling to hurt people or do them wrong because she was good at it or because it was easy, even when she was hurt first. He didn’t think about how he would typically dismiss such martyrdom, but something had changed.

It didn’t cross his mind- the thought that she was changing him, unknowingly. Or that he was changing her. Or maybe they were doing this themselves- the catalyst being an assumption that she was the easiest mark that day. Would he instead have preferred to face Blade’s icy wrath or Trouble’s flashfire temper? Instead of this tiny and disarming ray of light that was sometimes too bright, too good, and made him want to scatter back to the shadows- to counting coin and his schemes and thinking that people like that don’t exist?

People who are met with hard, unyielding force either break or harden in return, they don’t extend trust and kindness and warmth, they don’t make him feel wanted,needed for simply being himself-

(They don’t stare at him over a bread bowl with the biggest, saddest eyes and ask softly for a little trust in return)

No, Chase didn’t notice. He didn’t think about it at all.

—-

[the-real-rg]

F - Fear

= a-z challenge for R U N says the D E V I L = ask or interact here to join the T A G L I S T = word count: 403 = T R I G G E R  W A R N I N G for mentions of suicide & death = likes/reblogs greatly appreciated

What looked like the remnants of a fight marred the path to the clinic, spiraling out of the Blind Owl and spilling onto the street like eviscerated intestines. Soldiers and drunks alike milled about; red dripping from the latter’s lips like booze, matching the stains on their knuckles. The guards eyed Devi suspiciously, recognizing the Devil with ease. In an alley, tucked next to the bar, lay a crumpled lump of blanket. A body. Right across from the clinic.

Fear yanked at Devi’s knees as she approached one of the guards standing by the corpse.“What happened?” she asked, throat dry.

He looked at her with some disdain, silent even as he sneered.

Devi gestured at the body with her foot, hands tucked into herself for warmth. “A patcher?” She didn’t get an answer beyond the slightest twitch in his gaze, and panic latched onto Devi’s heart. Was it Ahava? She prayed it wasn’t a tell. “I’m Insensitive, same as you. Just curious, is all.”

The guard sighed. “A riot started and the witch got caught in the center of it—they were pretty much torn to pieces. Can’t say they didn’t get what they deserved, though. The folks we’ve asked say they were practicing.”

Practicing. God, it couldn't Ahava under that blanket, could it? She was smarter than that. Had her eyes faded yet? Was Ahava safe? Where was she right now? The clinic?

Devi tried to hide her panic even as she looked back at the clinic. No light came through the shuttered windows. “Are they an Aeran patcher?”

He grunted. “No idea. Their eyes were gouged out.”

Devi nodded numbly, before turning away from the scene, heading towards the clinic. First Barachiel and now this? Her skin itched, fists clenching by her side as Devi did her best to keep walking forward, rather than running back to the corpse to rip off it’s blanket, claw at its face until it told her the truth. Was it Ahava? 

What would the doctor’s face look like, gold eyes hollowed out by violent, indulgent fingers? Blood dripping from dark pits and claw marks down her cheeks. Would there be bruises on Ahava’s knuckles, signs that she died fighting? Or would she be barely recognizable, just a body beaten and bruised and torn; limp as a doll? Would she cold, skin pale and unfeeling beneath Devi’s calloused fingers? No longer sunlight, no longer warm.

Please, Devi thought, as she tried to stifle tears, please let her be alive. Devi didn’t know what she’d do if Ahava died. Maybe she’d kill herself.

The clinic door was locked and the windows were bolted and Devi didn’t have a key. Too bad for Ahava. Devi began pounding on the door with vigour, not quite desperate enough to start yelling yet. She was scared, yes, but attracting the attention of the Guard wouldn’t help anyone.

There was the sound of movement from inside the clinic, followed by the flashfire light of a lantern being brought to life. Devi heard a thud, several small things clattering to the floor, and Ahava cursing loudly.

The Devil quietly thanked whatever gods existed for saving the doctor.

“Who is it?”

Devi took a moment to collect herself, feeling impossibly shaken as her breathing came in uneven, relieved gasps, wet with grief. “It’s Devi.”

[sequencefairy]

Mouthful of White Lies

Ichiruki. Angst. Post-TYBW, before 686. Canon-compliant in the worst way. Consider yourselves warned for ichi//hime and implied ren//ruki. Also, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ishihime. Thanks to @leohzy and @hashtagartistlife for the read-through. ~2100 words.

I can’t find you in the body sleeping next to me/what happened to the soul you used to be.

[ AO3 ] 

Fall rushes in on the cold wings of a storm that strips the leaves off the trees and tosses them into soggy piles up against doorways and into the gutters. Ichigo scuffs his feet through the piles on his twice daily walk between the campus and the apartment complex where he lives. It rains in icy gusts that chill him to the bones and make him hunch his shoulders and turn up the collar on his jacket. He walks, hands stuffed into his pockets and head down, earbuds pushed into his ears to discourage any friendly overtures that aren’t already put off by the scowl that darkens his brow and twists his mouth.

Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute Shinigami no more, is twenty-one years old, ginger-haired, and outwardly, completely happy with his life. He’s got a job and an apartment, he’s got papers to write and exams to study for and a girlfriend to dote on, who dotes on him in return, but there’s something missing.  Ichigo has never been the kind of person that spends a lot of time on self-examination, but he is intimately familiar with the shape of the thing that is missing – it is a little under five feet tall, possessing eyes the colour of a twilight sky and is the reason he used to get up in the morning.

Ichigo turns off the sidewalk, and heads into the apartment complex, where his flat waits, dark and cold, to welcome him home. He toes his shoes off at the door, and drops his bag and his keys on the floor next to them. The rain falls in sheets against the windows, and Ichigo flips the blinds closed, preferring not to look out at the sodden city. He hates the rainy season.

He pads through his flat, opens the fridge, decides there’s nothing of worth inside it, closes the fridge, and stands, aimlessly, in the middle of his dark kitchen. He should eat. He should study. He should call Inoue. He should - do a lot of things. Instead, he stands, shoulders slowly hunching forward, in the middle of his kitchen, until the ringing of his phone shatters the silence.

Ichigo startles, and then flings himself towards the entryway and his bag. He fishes his phone out and accepts the call without looking.

“Yo,” he says, and there’s a startled inhale on the other end of the line.

Ichigo?

Ichigo responds with his own startled inhale. He hasn’t heard that voice in almost three years. “R–Rukia?”

Yes, you idiot. There’s a huff of fond exasperation in her voice and Ichigo smiles despite himself.

“Something I can do for you?”

Meet me down by the river, she says, I’ve got something to tell you.

“You – you’re here? In Toyko? What?”

Are you going to meet me or not?

“It’s pouring rain –”

So bring an umbrella.

She hangs up without waiting for his answer and Ichigo stares at his phone in the palm of his hand for a long time before tapping out a quick text to Inoue, telling her he got caught up at the lab and that he’ll call her tomorrow night (the lie sits heavy in his stomach, but he can’t possibly tell her the truth) and then rummages through his closet for the only umbrella he owns.

The rain has abated somewhat by the time he reaches the riverbank. He strolls down the empty path; mind racing as he tries to imagine what she could possibly have to tell him after three years of no contact. They’d agreed that it would be too hard, that they wouldn’t do this – she would go on with her life and he with his, because the gulf that separated them was too wide to cross. She was a spirit being, he was a living human - and he remembers the inflection she’d placed on human, because it was the same one she’d used the last time she’d tried to push him away for his own good.

Last time, he’d been young and foolish and utterly in love with this girl who had come into his life like a thunderclap and was being taken out of it by force. He’d refused to adhere to her direction and had instead taken on the entirety of the seireitei to get her back. This time though, this time, there were no tears in her eyes, there was no trembling bottom lip, there was only her eyes like flint and her voice steady and resigned, and the icy whisper of her reiatsu swirling around his ankles.

She’d left him standing in front of the clinic, and she hadn’t looked back. Belatedly, Ichigo had reached out, his fingers grasping empty air for the sleeves of her shihakusho. He doesn’t like to remember the way he’d said her name, but it rings through the memory, the syllables cracked and his voice thready like he’d been winded.

When vehement denial finally gave way to a vicious and spiralling anger, Ichigo stumbled to Urahara’s shop in the middle of the night and pounded on the door until the man himself came to answer. The usual flashfire of his rage then simmered through weeks of intense sparring sessions that left Ichigo battered mentally as well as physically. Urahara had a particular talent for needling Ichigo to just past the brink of his own self-control - far enough that Ichigo would have to wage a battle on two fronts, but never far enough that there was any danger that Ichigo would lose control entirely.

At the end of the anger, there were the increasingly desperate (more like pathetic, he thinks now) requests to Urahara to open the gate, to let him through, to give him the chance to see her one last time. Urahara had steadfastly refused, and Ichigo’s rage had been broken back to an all-consuming melancholy that washed everything out to grey and left him fumbling for normalcy any way that he could find it.

Inoue had been the balm that he’d applied, liberally, to the gaping wound in his chest. She’d done the same thing she’d always done, gentling him like you would a nervous yearling; curling her fingers firmly but loosely around his, letting him drown himself in her skin, and all the while, shoring up the crumbling bits of his soul. They’d fallen together in the quiet way of two people grieving similar but unrelated losses, and Ichigo will be grateful forever for the way Inoue doesn’t push him into anything, for the way she wants him to take it slow, the way she understands him - she knows the whole story (more or less) and sometimes, he thinks, she might know it better than he does.

(He’s never heard the whole of her story, but he knows her and he knows Ishida, and he knows that distance makes things difficult.)

And yet, even now, three years later, he still sometimes dreams about Rukia - the way she laughed, the way her fingers felt, carding through his hair, the way her voice would turn to smoke and embers when they were alone. In the dreams, he no longer has to long for the feel of her skin, for the taste of her on his tongue. The dreams come much less frequently now than they did at the beginning - when the loss was still fresh, and the wound still raw - but now they come as a surprise and leave him gasping awake, his heart racing and his skin tingling with the leftovers of the vision.

When Inoue is there beside him when he wakes up, he pulls her close and buries his nose in the scent of her hair - warm vanilla and soft honey and so different than the cool hint of gardenias that used to follow in Rukia’s wake.

(When she is not, he slides out of bed and out of his skin and flings himself from rooftop to rooftop until he is too exhausted to go any further.)

Ichigo knows Inoue is too good to him, that she deserves better than this, better than him, better than someone who wakes up with someone else’s name in his mouth and the ghostly imprint of their hands on his skin. Inoue deserves someone who loves her for all that she is, not someone who is only capable of loving her with the pieces of themselves that don’t already belong to someone else.

But, he supposes, she only loves him with the pieces of herself that she didn’t give to Ishida, and so, he thinks, they are probably a better match than even they realise.

He rounds a bend in the path, and there she is. She’s in gigai – he can tell because she’s not shimmering under the rainfall - and her hair falls like a river of midnight ink down the back of her yellow coat – the same yellow coat, he’s sure, she was wearing that day they went skating. The very same coat she was wearing the day before she left for seventeen months, the day before his brain caught up with what his soul knew from the moment they met.

She turns before he can get any closer and Ichigo’s steps slow. Her face is the same, though her hair is longer now, and when she lifts a hand in greeting, that too, is the same. Ichigo raises his own hand in return and if his steps quicken now that she’s noticed him, it’s entirely unconscious on his part. He reaches her before he knows it, and it turns out that her eyes are the same as they always were too, and so is the soft curve of her mouth into her barely there smile.

“Rukia,” he says when gets close enough, and she inclines her head. “I thought you were too busy to come down the gensei to visit?” Ichigo tries to keep his voice teasing and light, but does not entirely succeed. His phone vibrates in his pocket, he ignores it.

“I am,” she says, and there’s a catch in her voice that makes Ichigo’s gut roll. She looks down and away and the feeling intensifies. Rukia lets the silence between them drag out a few beats longer than is comfortable before continuing. “I wanted to tell you first,” she says, and Ichigo catches a flash of gold in her hand when she brings her hands together, and wrings her fingers. “Ichigo,” she says, and then she looks up at him.

Ichigo’s breath catches in his throat. Rukia’s eyes flare wide, and there’s a heart-stopping moment where the rest of the city drops away and Ichigo remembers another night on another riverbank. He half expects the fizz-bang of a firework to send colour wheeling into the sky, but the night remains silent and still.

“Why are you here Rukia?” Ichigo asks, ignoring the way his palms have gone clammy. Ichigo’s phone vibrates in his pocket again, this time in the series of buzzes that means it’s a phone call, not a text. He ignores it again.

“Ichigo,” Rukia repeats, and the next words she says are impossible. So utterly impossible that Ichigo asks her to repeat herself. She does. Something gives inside Ichigo’s chest, and his stomach plummets to his feet.

“Are - are you sure?” Ichigo’s voice is hoarse. He clears his throat.

“Yes, of course I’m sure,” Rukia answers. There’s a finality to her words, and Ichigo’s phone buzzes in his pocket again. He wants to throw it into the river. Instead, he grits his teeth and looks down at her again.

“H-how?”

“Well, you see –” Rukia drawls, and Ichigo glares at her. Rukia sighs, and she presses a hand to her stomach, letting her thumb caress the soft swell of her belly under her coat. Ichigo wills his gaze away from her hand, and turns to look out over the water. The low hanging clouds reflect the light pollution from the city and lend an eerie blue glow to the air.

The silence grows and Ichigo itches to fill it. There are words in his mouth that would hurt her, words that would burn this tentative bridge Rukia is offering, and oh, Ichigo wants to say them. He can taste them on his tongue. He can feel them stoppered against his teeth and it takes all his self-control to swallow them down, to clear his throat and turn back to her, to reach out, touch her shoulder and wish her well. He can feel his teeth grinding when he smiles, and Rukia, surprised, smiles back.

“It was nice to see you,” he says, and Rukia nods, and it’s perfunctory, their goodbye, and this time, this time, Ichigo knows he won’t see her again. He turns, and walks away, leaving Rukia in the newly re-started rain - and if there’s a vicious kind of glee that surfaces in the back of his mind at leaving her in the rain, waiting for him, well, he’s only (mostly) human.

He doesn’t feel her leave, but when he turns back just before the path turns, she’s gone.

[ray-fantasia]

MARINE new ref for artfight