#rukia gets a pass from me because ice and all

[uraharasandals]

ALSO YO IDK IF YOUVE SEEN THIS YET BUT HERE

https://twitter.com/Numasan0704/status/1598287615287242752?s=20&t=zREuMXOvGF90Ogins5xUnA

😳😳😳😳

no words, no thoughts, head empty, screaming only

and yes this is absolutely 100% recommended reading material for LITERALLY EVERYONE WHO FOLLOWS ME

[gallusrostromegalus]

So I may have been browsing through your AEIWAM tag and came across your writing of Komamura saying it's too hot in summer when you have a fur coat you can't take off. By that logic he's gonna always be sitting beside Hitsugaya in Captain meetings if he can swing it, especially in the early days, cause that boy is like a mini air conditioner next to him. XD

Wolves are winter creatures. The double coat, the snowshoe paws, the proclivity for cuddlepiles- if Sajin could move somewhere that never got above 40F he'd be in heaven. Alas, he lives in a major city that hits triple digits in the summer, so he keeps close track of the little pieces of winter he can find.

The first person to realize his little game was Unohana. She knew about the wolfman thing- Yamamoto trusts her as much as Sasakibe, and persuaded Sajin that, should a medical emergency arise, it should not also be a medical surprise.

She is of course, the pinnacle of Medical Confidentiality.

...but his name came up during one of the Shinigami Women's Association meetings/boozing sessions, and a distinct schism appeared.

On one side was Soi Fon, Nanao, and Herself, who all found Komamura to be very polite, professional and reliable if somewhat reticent and at times, aloof.

"I swear I can't get more than three words out of him!" Nanao despairs.

"I like him. He knows how to Shut Up." Soi Fon agrees.

"He's a very private man." Unohana nods.

Across the table, Isane and Rukia are baffled.

"Captain Komamura? Ten feet tall, bucket head? That Komamura?" Rukia the so-called Ice Princess asks, gesturing to indicate their height disparity. "What the fuck are you talking about? He's SUPER friendly and will hang around to talk FOREVER."

"Yeah, every time I go to the 7th he always asks me to stay for lunch and wants to know how everyone in my family is doing and swap horror stories from the ER for tales of crazy people in the intake queue." Agrees Isane, wielder of the ice cloud Itegumo. "It's embarrassing, but one time I was more than two hours late getting back because we get to talking!"

Everyone stares at everyone else, baffled.

"Did- did I do something to piss him off?" Wonders Nanao.

"Huh. Maybe he just picked up on how much I hate small talk on the job?" Soi Fon shrugs.

Unohana is silent, thinking.

"GUESS WHO BROUGHT TEQUILA!!" Matsumoto Rangiku announces as she kicks in the door, holding four bottles of liquor, only three of which were still full.

"We need you to settle a debate!" Rukia demands at once.

"Ooh! I love passing judgement on things that don't effect me!" Rangiku coos, sitting down, her chest making an odd 'clunk' sound on the table "- there's also salt and limes!"

"It kinda effects you." Soi Fon waved her hand noncommittally. "How would you describe Captain Komamura?"

"Tall, Heavily Armored and Mysterious?" Rangiku shrugs, pulling the box of kosher salt out of her cleavage.

"...more like his personality." Isane clarified.

"Oh! Uhh... You know what? He's one of the few people that's ever complimented me on streamlining like 80% of the paperwork we have to do." Rangiku nodded, fishing the limes out as well. "Always has stuff done waaaay before I expected and I feel like a bit of a jerk for not replying immediately, but never complains if my stuff comes in late."

"Does he hang around and talk, or is he just really businesslike?" Nanao asks, eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

"Hmm..." Fowns Rangiku. "Kinda varies by the day- Sometimes he's all business, other times he'll stay and chat. I always assumed he wants to talk but sometimes he's got work, you know?"

There is much confused muttering as the limes are cut, when Unohana raises a finger.

"...How is he with Lieutenant Hitsugaya?" She asks.

"Oh, he ADORES Toshiro!" Rangiku nods enthusiastically, salting her shot glass. "He actually does the majority of Toshiro's Bankai training now because The Old Man handed it off to him so he could focus on teaching Zaraki Everything But Kendo- which, bless him for doing that, Shiro-kin could literally freeze my tits off!- and he really does a good job listening to Toshiro's concerns and confusions- he's a sensitive boy, you know? And Koma-kun is so gentle with him and to be honest I always eavesdrop on his advice because I could use it too. Delightful man all around." She nodded, and moved to down her drink.

"...Why?" She asked, pausing her drink and glaring suspiciously at Unohana.

Unohana nods with the clarity of enlightenment. "Nothing serious, but everything makes sense now." She smiles, then cracks into a small giggle. "It's rather charming, actually."

"Care to elaborate?" Soi Fon grumbles.

"Yeah that answered NOTHING." Rangiku glares.

"We noticed an interesting disparity in his behavior." Unohana explains, pushing her own glass towards Rangiku to fill. "For me, Captain Fon, and Lieutenant Ise, Komamura-Taicho is very polite, but sticks to the matter at hand and will not volunteer any further conversation. For Lieutenant Koetetsu, Miss Kuchiki and apparently Lieutenant Hitsugaya, he has all the time in the world and is quite the chatterbox."

"...Weird." Rangiku frowns, intrigued by the puzzle. "For me it's like, half and half?"

"Not quite, I think." Unohana smirks. "What do Isane, Rukia and young Toshiro all have in common?"

The Resounding Silence of Thinking Very Hard around the table was a bit of a disappointment, but they were about three bottles into the evening already.

"Can't be Height." Nanao hummed. "Rukia and Shiro-Kun are shorter than a stack of pancakes but Isane's got legs that are too long for the cover of Vouge."

"Isane and Toshiro are both silver-haired, but not me, and he doesn't seem to be particularly close to Ukitake-Taicho and I think I've actually seen him run out of a room to avoid Gin." Rukia puzzled.

"What? RUDE." Rangiku protested.

"They're all under a century old, right?" Rangiku pondered.

"No, I'm almost two hundred!" Isane sighed. "Oh wait- we all graduated early from the Academy!"

"Ehhhh, I graduated because I got adopted, I'm not a genius like you and Shiro-kun." Rukia waved. "Also, how would HE know that?"

"You're all Lieutenants!" Rangiku perked up.

"Not yet I'm not!" Rukia protested.

"Pfsh- you run half the division anyway. Jushiro should promote you to Co-lieutenant with Kaien already!" Rangiku waved.

"Its- it's complicated." Rukia mumbled. "Also, Nanao-chan is a Lieutenant and he doesn't like her!"

"Does it have to do with how freakishly huge he is?" Soi Fon asked.

"...Yes, actually." Unohana decided. Sajin might not have so much trouble thermoregulating if he was the size of a regular wolf. She reasoned privately.

"Also, He likes Nanao-chan just fine as far as I know. I think it's less about how much he enjoys your company- which I think he does, he's not one for putting on facades- and more about how much he enjoys your Proximity." She clarified, taking her shot. "Oh, this is good, what is it?"

"Cabrito Blanco." Rangiku read off. "Huh. The Cabrito on the label sure ain't Blanco." She frowned at the brown goat.

"None of us have transferred out of the Division we started in, but again, how would he know? and that hasn't got anything to do with Proximity..." Isane frowned.

Rukia slammed her glass down. "WOW that's got a kick. Maybe uhhhh... None of us wear perfume, but Gin doesn't either. I hope. I don't want to get close enough to find out."

"He's really not that bad-" Rangiku sulked. "OH, 'Blanco' refers to the tequila and this is that goat's white tequila!" She realized.

"Sometimes I wish I could take a weekend vacation in your brain. Its machinations fascinate me." Soi Fon teased. "Hmmm... Lotta close but no Cigar, you're all young-ish, Isane and Toshiro have living relatives and Rukia has a large adopted family, but again, not exclusive or Proximal. You're also all S-rank duelists with- OH!"

"Shh, I'm enjoying the flailing." Retsu grinned.

"Pfff- okay, that is kinda cute and I don't blame him." Soi Fon giggled. "Sometimes I'm real glad my seat is right next to The Old Man for the same reason. Or opposite reason, I guess."

"Bwah?" Rangiku frowned.

"I do the same thing with You, Momo and The Old Man that He's doing with them." Soi Fon grinned. Rangiku frowned, peculiar machinations grinding slowly through the tequila, before she suddenly cackled, head thrown back so hard Unohana had to reach out and grab her by the scarf to keep her from tipping her chair over.

"OH NOOOOOOOO!!" She wailed, shoulders shaking. "Oh- that's cute but Toshiro can NEVER find out he'll be such a brat about it!"

"Sorry I'm late, I had to finish the latest report on the Rice Farm Subsidy Fraud Investigation!" Momo panted, jogging in late. "-What can't Toshiro find out about?"

"There is SOMETHING that You, ran-chan and Yamamoto-sama share, and it's the same thing but backwards as what Me, Hitsugaya, and Isane have in common that Komamura-taicho really likes it or something, and THEY know but won't TELL US and its MAKING ME CRAZY!" Rukia wailed.

Momo stood, expression blank for a few moments. "Wait. You didn't know?"

"KNOW WHAT?" Rukia wailed.

"That Komamura hangs around with people with Ic-Mmpf!" Momo started to reveal but was abruptly tackled and the rest of the sentence smothered in Rangiku's Cleavage.

"With WHAT?" Nanao demanded. "What do they have that I don't?"

"-Hang on." Isane frowned, the slowly turned to her captain, squinting. "Is. Is this a... Physics Issue?"

"That's one way to phrase it." Unohana smiled as Momo flailed for air.

"Oh my Gooooood..." Isane groaned. "Why doesn't he just ASK? I'd happily go over and give Itegumo some practice, I hate summertime too!"

"Huh?" Rukia glared, as Momo finally fought her way free and gasped for air.

"Itegumo? That's your- ohhhhhhh." Nanao realized. "That's. Okay yeah that's actually really cute." She giggled. "Poor guy. The armor can't help with that, can it?"

"That's what I keep telling him but it's-" Unohana waved her hands and grimaced with frustration. "-He wears the armor because he's facing the *stupidest* form of Political Persecution I've ever heard of." she sighed.

"Really?" Asked Momo. "Captain Tousen said Komamura told him it's because he's got a major disfigurement or something?"

Unohana sighed and rolled her eyes. "Komamura is FINE, he's just- It's complicated and medically private but trust me, the helmet is a reasonable precaution against an absurd problem."

"Oh." Momo winced. "Well, I'm glad he's medically alright at least!" "I'm so fucking confused." Rukia whimpered, deflating over the table in despair. "Is. Is hanging out with me making him less sick or something??"

"...Yes!" Unohana smiled. "Or at least, makes his condition more physically comfortable."

Rukia turned that over a few times. "...Talking with him is helping?"

"Yes, but only if you're in the same room with him. Doesn't work over the phone." Unohana nodded.

"Okay." Rukia said, reaching for the nearest bottle. "Lets talk about something else."

---

Years Later, after the Bedlam of her attempted execution and Subsequent Rescue, Rukia finally saw Komamura's face.

It was a bit awkward, walking into the hospital room in search of her brother to find a nine-and-a-half foot tall wolfman wearing the Seventh Division Captain's Haori visiting Momo. It took her a moment to realize who he was, and another as some neurons connected and she squawked indignantly, pointing at him.

"My apologies, Lieutenant Kuchiki, but-" He sighed, ears flattening back against his head with Chargin.

"AIR CONDITIONING?!?!" She bellowed.

Komamura scrunched back, chagrined. For a massive apex predator, he did an excellent Kicked Puppy face.

"Rukia!" Momo protested faintly from her hospital bed. "Keep your voice down, I don't want Toshiro to find out!"

"Find out what?" Hitsugaya grunted, stepping out from behind Rukia.

"Ah, Well-" Komamura started to explain.

Rukia rounded on Hitsugaya, pointing behind her at the captain. "THIS JACKASS HAS BEEN EXTRA NICE TO YOU, ME AND ISANE BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE ICE-TYPE ZANPAKUTO AND CHILL THE AIR AROUND US!"

"...Summer is very uncomfortable when you have a fur coat you can't take off." Komamura winced.

"Uh, duh?" Hitsugaya rolled his eyes, strolling into the room. "I didn't know you were chilling Koetetsu and Kuchiki here as well, but I kinda figured you enjoyed the cold when you stayed at my Bankai training like, five times longer than Gramps ever did."

"My apologies for the deception." Komamura bowed his head.

"It's no big deal." Hitsugaya shrugged, putting a hand up to indicate he wanted help up onto the hospital bed, and Komamura obliged.

"See? I use you being tall too." he smirked.

Komamura sighed fondly as the boy sat down between him and Momo. "Momo makes me chill all her juice too, but she never seems to warm up my tea." he handed her a juice box from the vending machine down the hall, covered in condensation.

"It would explode." Momo grumbled.

"Skill Issue." He shrugged and she affectionately swatted him on the leg. "Anyway, don't dogs cool off through their paws?"

"I'm from a wolf clan, but yes." Komamura cocked his head with curiosity, then alarm when Toshiro casually grabbed his forearm and started tugging his Gauntlets off.

"I don't mind being a human ice pack, especially not when it's nintey-eight freakin' degrees out, but be efficient about it, yeah?" Toshiro grumbled, tossing the gauntlet aside and plopping Komamura's pawlike hand on top of his head.

"...Thank you." Komamura smiled gently, and ruffled his hair a bit.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Hitsugaya shrugged, playing the tough guy even as his ears turned red. "At least you're polite about it! Freakin' Zaraki literally just grabbed me- like, put his whole arm through the office window! and threw me over his shoulders once. Jerk."

"TOSHIRO!" Momo yelped, hand on her face. "You almost made juice come out of my nose!" She half-giggled while Rukia snort-laughed at the mental image.

"Hey Kuchiki!" Hitsugaya growled. "He's got two paws!"

"You can't boss me around! You don't outrank me anymore!" She grinned.

"I have seniority." he teased, and the bed started to shake as Komamura tried not to laugh.

"You really don't need to-" Komamura tried to diffuse the argument. His voice was rock-steady but the wide grin betrayed him.

"You gotta follow my orders though!" Ukitake said cheerfully, appearing in the door. "Hi Lieutenant Hinamori!"

"C-captain!" Rukia yelped, spinning around to Salute. "What are your orders, Sir?

"Shh, nothing's happening. But I did hear you squawking from two floors down, so what's happening?" Ukitake smiled down at her.

"Captain Komamura has APPARENTLY been hanging around me and the other Shinigami with Ice Zanpakuto and using us as Air Conditioners!" Rukia glared up at her commanding officer.

"...Rukia," Ukitake patted her head and smiled gently. "Do you remember where Lieutenant Kaien's desk was?"

"Second door on the left, right next to your office, Sir!" She nodded.

"Right! And where's your desk?" Ukitake asked, leaning in closer to her.

Rukia blinked, confused. "...It's immediately adjacent to your desk in your offi- GOD DAMMIT! NOT YOU TOO?"

"Yep!" Ukitake cheerfully patted her head and then palmed it to turn her around to face Komamura. "Hop to it!"

"Technically, I got the Idea from him, when I saw how he'd rearranged the furniture..." Komamura whispered as he helped her up onto the bed as well and Rukia groaned in defeat, settling next to Komamura where she could sulk at her captain from over the wolfman's broad shoulders.

"Oh, stop pouting!" Ukitake teased, sitting down on the chair beside Momo's bed and leaning back. "It'll be winter soon enough. Actually, Your friend Mr. Yasutora told me about a fascinating wintertime holiday in the Living World-"

[randomreadingtimewithtsuki]

May I ask fave kind of kiss to receive and give for your fave Bleach characters? Thanks! (btw, wonderful mudkip)

Hello! Thank you for requesting!

I am not gonna lie, this request made smile! It was not because you complimented the mudkip, no. I am not that simple no. But mudkips are cute.

I hope this is of your liking! Please let me know what you think!

Tsuki's note: I had a hard time choosing. In the end I picked 4.

I feel like they are slightly short? Sorry about that :c I hope I could get the characters right! Even though I chose them I feel insecure

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Hitsugaya Toshiro:

Rather give kisses….

• Boy is a bit of a tsundere and a little gentleman.

• So expect forehead kisses when you are napping.

• It's so light and feather like that you hardly even feel.

• The only exception for this is if you get to be the wholesome bean you are - if manage to melt the ice of his heart for a bit - or you get awfully injured for his sake. He will give a forehead/ top of the head kiss while awake.

• Won't talk about it ever again.

• It never happened.

• No.

Rather receive kisses…

• Smooch his face.

• A sweet kiss on the cheek!

• He will turn bright red.

• Will try to play it cool but the stutter gives him away.

• May act like he is mad - and it will look like that way - but deep down he is hoping it happens again.

• He enjoys it because it feels comfortable, like no boundaries being broken? But also very sweet.

• Just don't forehead kiss him. He will see it as calling him a kid or shorty.

• Bonus: try hugging him more often and you will get a similar result.

On both cases He will be painfully awkward for a bit. But hey, he is adorable! Just got a reputation to hold on to, you know, a young captain with a heart of ice!

Kurosaki Ichigo:

Rather give kisses….

• Another forehead / top of the head kisser.

• These are soft and a bit long kisses.

• Kissing your cheek and biting it a bit? Yes.

• But only in private.

• You know it's coming because he gets the ** soft eyes **.

• Also enjoys to hug you from behind and kiss your cheeks many times.

• These kisses are a bit rough. You see he is trying to tease you!

• The more you wiggle, the more he laughs.

Rather receive kisses…

• Find utterly adorable to see you try to reach him. He is tall you know?

• In case you are as tall or taller, he will move away to watch you struggle.

• Anyway.

• He really likes to be kissed on the cheek and hands.

• Be it the palm or the knuckles.

• It passes as a cute action of caring for him, since he fights a lot. Like a kiss to make a boo boo better!

• Watch him melt if you kiss his shoulder blade.

• Immediately because ichigo mousse, yeah a pun.

• You can hear his sigh. He seems so much more relaxed.

• Probably plops on you so you can kiss his hands or shoulder.

• Bonus: I don't know why but he strikes me as someone who enjoys chin scratches. He just, closes his eyes and bask in the moment.

All in all he will be a bit awkward but that is because he is not very found of PDA. But in private you will have a melted Ichigo in your arms with simple hand kisses.

Kuchiki Rukia:

Rather give kisses….

• She loves to grab your face and kiss your nose.

• Why? Because it's cute to see you so close to her and well with a nose kiss you will close your eyes and cannot see her blush.

• She would also like to give you long, soft cheek kisses.

• You know those that seem to linger for a little too long and you just giggle?

• Yeah.

• You bet she will wake you up with a kiss on the nose.

• Your confused face makes it all more adorable!

Rather receive kisses…

• She rather get cheek kisses.

• Forehead kisses feel soft, yes, but also feels like you are treating her like a kid.

• She likes nose kisses too!

• It's soft and end up being your way with affection with each other!!

• It's simple and sweet.

• She lowkey likes it when you grab her cheeks and kiss her on the lips.

• This kind of surprise is very heart warming for her.

• It feels safe to be with her guard down around you.

• Bonus: she melts away with you snuggle on her neck/ collarbone. It feels warm and sweet!

She may be a bit sassy, but she is a little bit of a hopeless romantic when she falls in love. Watch her cuddle with you to give and get cheek kisses!

That will probably end in a giggling session, but totally worth it!

Shihoin Yoruichi:

Rather give kisses….

• Queen of teasing will not let it cheap.

• She loves kissing where you are ticklish or makes you go !!!.

• Neck, ears, belly, anywhere that will make you blush wildly or laugh like crazy.

• She adores making you weak in the knees to just… leave.

• Her kisses are very feather like, all you can feel is a light brush and she whispers too sometimes.

• She also enjoys surprise kisses. On the lips.

• Before you go out she kisses your forehead. It's a sign of " see you soon, stay safe".

• Again, she is a tease. Watch her kiss your hand while looking at you. She knows you will get shy. She knows.

Rather receive kisses…

• She adores receiving kisses on her neck and shoulders.

• She also melts away with them.

• And gets a little too comfortable. You know what I mean. She is a cat in her free time.

• Surprisingly she also likes to get forehead kisses.

• It's a reminder that she is strong, yes, but she is yours and can be vulnerable with you.

• She also loves when you playfully bite her after a kiss.

• Bonus: she loves cuddling into you. She turns into a little ball on her human form and just cuddles. She loves it because she can hear your heart beat and you can play with her hair.

She is a tough lady that likes torturing teasing you! So be ready for random kisses that make you stutter or to simply make you remember she loves how cute you are and she is going lengths to get that adorable red face.

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I hope you enjoyed it!

Forgive me for it being short :c

Please let me know what you think!

Thank you for reading!

[recurring-polynya]

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I am In Love with Hitori Sasori and she is probably my favourite OC side character of all time. You only spent a few paragraphs fleshing out her character (speaking of, I LOVE your writing: it takes you less words than most professional authors to write a female that actually passes the Bechtel test lol) but that little bit was enough to get me evil laughing (have I mentioned I love you’re writing?!). I’m definitely not asking for more content or something, I just wanted you to know I love and appreciate her badassery!

Thank you! I’m so glad you like her! 

I’m always torn, because I hate making OCs, but I want my world to seem very rich and full, so I generally try to make ones that I can re-use. Most of the time when I see people writing Soul Society noble characters, they are very sinister and backstabby and often hate Rukia. a) I am honestly crap at writing intrigues and b) I always feel like most people are far to wrapped up in their own selves to bother being evil, the banality of everyday selfishness is far more interesting to me. I also love the way the upper class are portrayed in Jane Austen’s novels-- people are good and bad, but they are also weird and annoying and obsessed with their hobbies or their fad diets, but they are very much *people.*

Rukia’s been around noble circles for 40 years. People may find her distastefully common, but on the other hand, she’s the sister of the Kuchiki clan head, and so I think they are going to be nice to her, whether they feel it or not. On the other hand, Rukia is quite good at reading people and is not particularly interested in noble hobnobbing, and so I thought it would be in-character for her to have acquired a stable of Weird Lesbians that she hangs out with at parties. All of them are way too into their hobbies, because they’re smart, but under-stimulated. Sasori was actually the first of these delightful ladies that I came up with. It’s extremely funny to me to name-drop characters from the anime filler arcs, so I definitely wanted someone attached to the Kasumiohji clan, the weaponsmakers from the Captain Amagai arc. Sasori is based a little bit on Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, both in the sense that she’s very embedded in her family business, and because of that sick fight where she keeps breaking weapons on Green Destiny and swaps through about ten extremely different weapons like this is just a regular Tuesday. That just seemed like a really fun person who Rukia would enjoy being friends with, and who would, in turn, admire the freedom and usefulness Rukia enjoys by being a member of the Gotei. The fact that their friend group also includes a horse girl and a woman who writes romance novels is just icing on the cake.

This wasn’t really a deliberate attempt to get my Bechdel check boxes. It’s just that on average, I care about a female characters roughly 10 times as much as male characters, and if there aren’t enough of them around, I will just make some.

You know, while writing this, it occurred to me that Sasori probably knows my other weirdly popular OC, Kuchiki Choei. I cannot decide if they would be failed-to-achieve-expected-family-roles solidarity besties or if Choei is just terrified of Sasori, doubly so, now that she is in Squad 11.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words! I worry constantly about overusing my OCs, so these kinds of reassurances are good for easing that anxiety. She’s a very useful character, especially now that she dual-classes as both a Fancypants Socialite and a Squad 11 Dirtbag, so I am sure you will see her again in the future.

[m34gs]

'Tis I, the one who puts her shirt on wrong most of the time😊😊

And I bring you this humble idea

Kisuke takes everyone to the beach. Would Grimmjow like it? Would he know how to swim? What swimwear would he wear? What kind of shenanigans would he and Ichigo get up to? Who is included in "everyone"? 🧡🧡💙💙

I hope you are having a lovely day!!!

Hello there, my lovely friend with her shirt on backward! I had a wonderful day, spent some time with a friend! I hope your day was good as well!!!

I very much enjoy this idea, and I have several thoughts, which I will put under the cut as this will be quite a long post, lol!

So, Kisuke wants to take them all to the beach...why? Because, he's Kisuke. He's probably running from some responsibility or other, or maybe he needs some special item and the beach is where it happens to be, but it's hot and he doesn't want to look for it, he wants to goof off. So he brings the others in the hopes one of them will 'stumble across it' and he can swoop in and get it. Is it a cursed object? Perhaps. Will they need to fight off some hollows to get to it? Oh definitely. Does he tell them any of this before hand? No. Why? Because, he's Kisuke.

Who is this 'everyone' he invites to the beach? Well, we have the usual victims I mean friends: Ichigo, Grimmjow, Jinta, Ururu, and Yoruichi comes along to laugh at everyone. Tessai is there too, with a lovely picnic laid out, all hand made foods. I think the invitation would be extended (by Jinta) to Ichigo's sister, Yuzu, and Karin because Karin will not be one to stand by and let her siblings have a fun day while she's stuck at home with Puck I mean, Isshin. Maybe Ichigo is totally suspicious of this whole set up. Why? Because, it's started by Kisuke. So he confides to Orihime about it, which was the wrong decision because now her and Chad and Uryu are all coming along instead of helping him get out of the situation. Rukia and Renji come too, after finding out about the trip from Kisuke and Rukia basically telling him to make sure there's enough food for the two of them as well.

Grimmjow is unsure what to think at first. He's curious, but not so much about the beach as he is about why it is such a big event. He doesn't get why all the humans and soul reapers wanna hang around in the sand and then get soaked in the water, like, don't they get cold? And what do they do when they have to get undressed? Isn't that taboo for humans to see each other naked blatantly in the open like that. Kisuke laughs at him at first, and then explains the concept of swimsuits. And now Grimmjow is more confused, because why would they want special clothes just to get wet?

But he has to join in and be just like the rest of them, because he wouldn't want them thinking he's scared or weak or anything like that. So he demand Kisuke help him find a swimsuit. Which is part of the plan. See, I fully believe that whatever original plan Kisuke has for this trip, he also wouldn't pass up a chance to have Ichigo and Grimmjow around each other in swimwear. Two birds, one stone, and all that jazz. So he finds Grimm a swimsuit. It's tight. Skin tight. The kind professionals use. I used to be in a swimclub, for about seven years. Trust me, the racing suits? They hide NOTHING. And Grimmjow doesn't know enough to be able to say he doesn't like it. He assumes everyone will have one like that. He is wrong.

Ichigo chokes when he sees Grimmjow walk out in that suit. Legit. Chokes on the air. Because it very finely accentuates the Arrancar's butt and thighs. But also, because Grimmjow didn't wear a shirt, not a sweater, nothing on top. He is showing off his fine upper body and Ichigo can't cope. He's dying. Chad, help him, man down, Ichigo is a puddle now. A puddle of Ichigo, on the pavement because Kisuke is an ass :D (Ichigo knows it's Kisuke's doing because he knows there is no way Grimmjow would choose something like that).

Chad and Orihime may have to shake him a bit, but Ichigo recovers. Grimmjow is concerned (he read about the dangers of humans getting heat stroke at the beach, on the internet, and he'll be damned if he lets Ichigo die on him in less than ten minutes, without even challenging him to the dangerous life-threatening game of beach volleyball) so he yanks Ichigo over to the shade and tells him to 'stay there if you don't want to die, shithead'. Ichigo is now very confused; on the one hand Grimmjow being bossy is kind of...hot, but on the other he came to the beach so he is not going to sit in the shade and watch everyone else have fun. He ends up going into the water to Grimmjow's dismay, and much like an overbearing parent cat, Grimmjow is constantly fetching him out and dropping him in the shade. And Ichigo fights him the entire way and then goes right. back. in. the water. Grimmjow is getting hella frustrated because why the heck can't Ichigo see he is trying to protect him from the dangers of the sun and also the danger of the sea monsters (which he heard about from Kisuke and Jinta). Each time, Ichigo goes out further, and each time Grimmjow fetches him and brings him back (He knows how to swim, he's just not used to doing it when not naked in a pool of water in the training ground Kisuke has).

This goes on for several hours. Everyone else is idly watching them and placing bets on who caves in to who first, while still having their own fun. Finally, Ichigo is the one that goes 'fine. you know what? fine. I'm going to get some ice cream.' He turns on his heel and leaves to go get some from a nearby ice cream stand. And Grimmjow is NOT HAPPY BECAUSE THAT IS NOT THE FUCKING SHADE KUROSAKI YOU SHITHEAD GET BACK HERE. So he follows him.

It's unsurprising, but Ichigo now has a grumpy Grimmjow standing with him in the ice cream line. However, they are standing a few feet apart (due to them both being hot and annoyed at the other). So, Ichigo definitely gets hit on. I mean, he's a total catch. And all the other gay men definitely notice. So he's given this dude's number, and before he can even stammer out an excuse, Grimmjow takes the number from him, stares at it for a moment, then looks at the dude that gave it to him and says, because he is Grimmjow and fighting is all he ever thinks about and he has no clue yet that he is actually in love with Ichigo, "You wouldn't be able to satisfy him." He says that. To the man who gave Ichigo his number. And Grimmjow is talking about sparring, and Ichigo suspects this but that doesn't stop him from turning red and smacking the arrancar on the back of his head while the other man apologizes and says he 'didn't know Ichigo was taken already'. And Ichigo is too annoyed with Grimmjow to bother correcting the man, in fact he's so busy snapping at the arrancar he forgot the other man was there.

And then they get back to the beach, and both of them are as irritable as ever. Renji does that thing, where you get yourself soaked and then run over to hug your friend as a prank to make them cold and damp. And Ichigo has ice cream, which Grimmjow knows is cold. And the water is cold. So he grabs Renji's face and shoves him backward because dammit Abarai don't you know hypothermia is a THING. Except how dare he touch Rukia's friend, so she comes up, grabs his wrist, and tosses him over her shoulder in a self-defense throw (don't remember what it's called lol). And Ichigo is just sitting there like :/ with his ice cream.

Uryuu has not come out from under the umbrella they set up. He's reading a book. Ichigo goes to sit by him for a bit because it's calmer. Grimmjow leaves him be because at least that is SHADE. Yuzu and Karin are playing in the water with Jinta and Ururu, though Jinta is more focused on Yuzu and Karin is very protective of her twin so she is doing her best to sabotage all his efforts of winning Yuzu over. Ururu helps her because why not. Kisuke is sitting on the beach under an umbrella, eating delicious food and laughing as Karin once again pushes Jinta underwater. Orihime is trying to get them to stop picking on him, very concerned about someone getting hurt. Chad is floating in the water on his back, completely relaxed and ignoring everyone around him.

So, there are my thoughts, lol. Basically, everyone else is having normal fun at the beach and Grimmjow goes into overprotective mode for Ichigo because he is not used to beaches and he is nervous. Feel free to let me know your thoughts! Any other activities you think should happen? How long do they stay there? Does anyone else show up to join them? Do you think Ichigo and Grimmjow get some alone time at some point? What was Kisuke's true motive??? :D

[ramblingkat]

May 4. Iconic Settings

So, I’m a bit late, but here is the story for May 4th. Hopefully, I’ll have May 5th up later today. RL decided to wipe me out yesterday. So, bit late, but here you go. 

Fandom: Bleach/The Cabin in the Woods

Pairing/Characters: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke, Kuchiki Rukia, mentions of others. 

Watching as the fool ran, Kisuke hummed and reached out to offer his bloody fingers to the great, hulking beast that lurked next to him. The virgin was still watching, so Kisuke kept up the role. The little idiot would either try to attack or run soon enough. Though everything he had seen told him the virgin would run. The man was a fighter, but he was also scared shitless. Far more scared of him than of the monster outside the home. 

Though, to be fair, Kisuke was currently standing next to the whore, cut open and gutted, sharing bits of the more delicate inner meat between himself and his monster. 

“Hmm, I think I will use her to make you a mate. What do you think?” He cooed at the beast beside him, who nipped at his fingers. Not in a playful way, either. Kisuke shook his fingers, pouting at the creature. There was a gleam of annoyance in the gold eyes, but Kisuke knew he was the only one who saw it. That was fine. They were just playing a game, after all.

A whisper of a sound told him that the virgin was taking his chance. Tracking by the noise, he listened as the man slipped from his hiding spot while they were “distracted” and making his own run for it. Ah, good.

Once the man was out of the lab hidden under the cabin high in the mountain woods, Kisuke gave a nod and moved towards a computer that was sitting in the corner, dark green letters and numbers flickering over the screen. All set dressing, of course. He hit a hidden switch and it slid out of the way. Behind it was a much nicer setup, with a series of monitors above it. They showed videos from all over the property. 

A body leaned against his back, and Ichigo hummed as he hooked his chin over Kisuke’s shoulder so he could also watch. 

His breath smelled of blood, and the monster inside Kisuke purred at it. 

He had a job to do, however. Time later to chase that smell down and lick the taste of it from Ichigo’s mouth. 

“Rukia is going to be happy. She so rarely gets to grab anyone once they make it to the cabin,” Ichigo hummed, loosely wrapping his arms around Kisuke’s waist as they watched as the two survivors fled the cabin. The virgin had spotted the fool’s footprints and was following. Likely hoping to get support as they ran. 

Though that hope was likely as shattered as the fool was going to be. Rukia had caught him, a whisper of power freezing his feet to the ground. Around them, the wind picked up as a winter storm began to rise. It was the second of the weekend. The first had driven the group of skiers to take shelter in the cabin. They had finally been trapped when Rukia had attacked the first time, though the whore had slipped the trap and so she had to back off until Kisuke himself had dealt with the woman. Ichigo had dealt with the scholar and the athlete, and Kisuke smiled as he felt the lazy satisfaction radiating from Ichigo. 

They were either going to have amazing amounts of sex after this, or Ichigo was going to pass out in a food coma and sleep for a week. It was fifty fifty odds. 

“Kuchiki-san will feed well,” Kisuke agreed. “Though hopefully she won’t take too long.” He frowned. “I’d hate to ask this off you, Ichigo-san, but….”

“I’ll go chase the virgin around until you give me the all clear. No reason to let him fall off a cliff or brain himself on a tree before Rukia finishes off the fool.”

Kisuke smiled, and then snagged a kiss before Ichigo shifted back to his demonic form and slipped out.

Kisuke adored him so. 

Smiling, he turned back to watch the video of Rukia slowly freezing up the fool’s body, allowing her ice to creep up the man’s legs as she fed off his pain and terror. 

Kisuke was so proud of this unit. They were the only unit where the monsters themselves ran the sacrifices to the Ancient Ones. Kisuke had created dozens of scenarios for the sacrifices to select from, and everyone did their part. Plus, they were all able to feed from the fear and terror that the sacrifices generated. 

He knew that below him, even further than where the lab reached, the others were watching. It was important for all of them, because who knew where a new idea for a new scenario might come from. Plus, they were backup if Kisuke himself was busy with things and something needed to be done. 

Smiling, he watched as the white puffs of breath slowed, then stopped as Rukia touched her icy fingers along the fool’s cheek. Once she gave a thumbs up, he typed in a code so the Ichigo would get the alert saying he could either eat the virgin, or let him go. Whichever he wanted to do. 

Standing, Kisuke nodded to himself, then pulled out his phone. Mayuri always loved to deal with the remains of the sacrifices. It seemed the man was determined to discover how these sacrifices were able to keep the Ancient Ones sedated. Something like that. Kisuke didn’t care. It meant he didn’t have to clean up after playing. 

Rolling his shoulders, he snagged one last treat from the body of the whore, and headed for the hidden elevator. Spend a few days of relaxing and lounging around with Ichigo, then they could start the review and start planning for next year. It did take time to find the right group of people to fulfill the requirements. That was Yoruichi’s favorite part. She and Shinji always enjoyed the chance to go out and find the right group. 

There was a bounce to his step as Kisuke stepped into the elevator and watched the doors closed. Life was good, and Kisuke was happy to enjoy it for as long as he could. 

[ariadnekurosaki]

Snowdrops and Strawberry Flowers

Prompt: IchiRuki Week Day 6, emotional motion sickness/I can’t seem to drown you out

Rating: T

Read on AO3.

Snowdrops and Strawberry Flowers

Rukia’s cough starts nine weeks after Ichigo loses the last of his powers and watches her vanish from his sight. Shinigami aren’t really supposed to get sick, she thinks – her Captain being a glaring exception to the rule. It starts as a tickle in her throat, a tingling that won’t quite go away. She adds honey and lemon to her tea to soothe the irritation and drinks it by the potful as she studies for the lieutenants’ examination.

She dreams, sometimes, of Ichigo. Of amber-brown eyes and strong hands, of bright orange hair that always falls into his face. Rukia dreams of the moment she could no longer see herself in his eyes and the moment he turned away, walking back into his house.

The tickle in her throat becomes a cough that just won’t stop. Soon, Rukia gains a reputation within the division for her newfound addiction to tea. There is always a fresh pot on her desk as she studies, and her teacup is always full. The tea soothes her throat only momentarily, and Rukia takes to carrying a small, white handkerchief to cough into and stifle the noise.

The first time Captain Ukitake catches her, she is at a desk in the Thirteenth Division, with papers piled high around her and a tea tray at her elbow. “Rukia, are you well?” His voice startles Rukia and she raises her head from coughing into her ever-present handkerchief. The man’s expression is one of gentle worry, and he glances meaningfully at the many empty cups on her desk. “You’ve been coughing more and more often.”

She flushes brightly. “Ah, my apologies, Captain. The dust from my study guides is troubling me.” Rukia gestures at the papers piled on her desk. Some of the guides are quite old, and they really are awfully dusty.

Ukitake frowns gently and pats her lightly on the shoulder. “Well, be sure to get some fresh air. I know you have plenty of tea.” He gives a cough of his own and then sweeps away, haori billowing behind him.

Rukia opens the hand clutching her handkerchief. Nestled inside the fabric is a single white petal. It must be from the tea, she thinks, but the brew is merely a middling hojicha, and when she opens the pot the mesh basket shows no evidence of flower petals. Still, she puts it out of her mind and focuses on her studies.

The coughing gets worse, and there is almost always a flower petal or two, or three, or four coming from her mouth. Rukia barely contains it, even as she is officially named Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division and Ukitake proudly ties the badge around her bicep for the first time. She thinks: Ichigo would have been proud of me. And then she thinks Ichigo deserves a normal life, and all I have ever done is ruined that for him. When she leaves the assembly hall in which her investiture ceremony was held, Rukia coughs up a handful of flower petals, white and crumpled in her hands.

Still, there is so much work to be done. The division hasn’t had a lieutenant in five decades, after all. Rukia claims the lieutenant’s desk for her own and soon it is covered in paperwork and chappy merchandise – and cups of tea. Some of the chappies are the ones that Ichigo purchased for her. Those she treasures most of all, though she remembers his resentment when he had to fork over his human world yen for them.

“C-captain! Lieutenant!” Rukia tries to stifle her coughing as Sentarou and Kiyone run into the office she shares with Ukitake. She and her captain are both mid-coughing fit; it sounds a little ridiculous, she thinks even as she coughs up a few more white petals. They are flecked with blood, a new and concerning development.

“I’ll get tea for the Captain!” Sentarou announces.

“No, I’ll get tea for the Captain. And for Rukia!” Kiyone protests.

Rukia exchanges a look with Ukitake, whose face has drained of all color as he looks at her.

“Tea would be very helpful, thank you both,” Ukitake rasps and coughs into his handkerchief again. When the third seats have departed, he turns his attention to Rukia. “Those are flower petals,” he says, and although there is no accusation in his voice Rukia flinches.

“They must have been in my tea,” Rukia fibs.

Ukitake’s eyes narrow at her and he glances at the crumpled handkerchief in her hand. “You know that you can tell me anything and I will listen, Rukia,” he says gently.

Rukia’s lips part, on the verge of confessing her worry, but Kiyone and Sentarou rush in with tea trays in hand.

“I’ll serve Captain Ukitake!”

“No I’ll do it!”

And Rukia closes her mouth and smiles at Kiyone as she pours the tea. Ukitake merely looks on, eyes ineffably old and sad. When she asks for time off to allow Orihime to visit, he grants it readily but there is something else in his eyes that Rukia tries not to see.

“The flowers are so beautiful!” Orihime says a few days later as they walk through the Thirteenth Division training grounds.

Rukia tries her best to keep her coughing under control and keeps as cheerful a smile as she can manage on her face while they view the flowers and chat with Shinji. It works until Orihime turns to Rukia and says, “Kuchiki-san, I’m so worried about Kurosaki-kun. He’s so withdrawn and sad all the time! And Yuzu-chan says he isn’t eating the way he should be!”

Before Rukia can say anything she explodes into a coughing fit, barely managing to cover it with a handkerchief in time. Strangely, Orihime bursts into tears at the same time, streaks of saltwater running down her face and great sobs heaving from her chest. It’s so puzzling that when Rukia gets her coughing under control she asks gently, “Isn’t he happy, living a normal life?”

But Orihime shakes her head even as she keeps crying, and flings herself on Rukia. “I wanted him to be! I was so happy that he wouldn’t be in danger anymore and we could be normal together,” she cries. The words make Rukia blink even as she pats the girl gently on her back.

Normal together? But she still has her flowers, she thinks. “I’m sure it’s been an adjustment,” Rukia prevaricates.

“He’s – not the same at all,” Orihime sobs. “And I just don’t know what to do!”

Neither does Rukia, so she does her best to comfort her friend. But the knowledge that Ichigo is clearly not doing well stays with her long after Orihime leaves. She doesn’t notice the way Orihime notices her coughing, or realize that she has caught a glimpse of the white petals coated in blood.

 --------

Ichigo’s cough starts a week after Rukia disappears in front of him, along with the last of his shinigami powers. He blames it on a winter cold. Yuzu brings tea to his room when she hears him coughing, and Ichigo drinks it to ease the scratchy feeling in his throat. When the cough lingers into the spring and summer, he calls it allergies and then a summer cold. Never mind that he never has so much as a sniffle to accompany the coughing.

Cough syrup doesn’t seem to touch it, and his teachers eventually give him blanket permission to use cough drops in class. As a result, there’s always a lingering scent of menthol and honey around Ichigo. He watches Uryuu, Chad, and Orihime run off to deal with hollows the way he used to, and tries to ignore the ache in his chest that brings up.  

Goat-Chin examines him early on and finds nothing wrong with his son except a case of “teenage angst”, as he calls it, ignoring the fact that Ichigo used to be an extraordinarily powerful shinigami and is now just an ordinary teenager. He threatens to send Ichigo off for allergy testing, but Ichigo just shrugs and tells him to do what he wants. When he leaves his father’s clinic, he doesn’t notice how serious his old man looks, face shadowed and somber under the glare of the lights.

“Ah, Kurosaki-kun, isn’t it a lovely day out? Would you like to take a walk with me?” Orihime asks, voice high and hopeful during their lunch time.

Ichigo just looks out the window. “No thanks,” he says. “I think it’ll make my allergies worse.” Because that’s all the cough is – an allergic reaction to something.

At night he dreams of Rukia, of her voice calling his name and her body dancing close to his in battle, Sode no Shirayuki gleaming white and sending blasts of ice at her enemies. He dreams of that moment in Hueco Mundo when he caught her in mid-fall, facing off against Yammy to protect her.

Ichigo. Ichigo, we live in two different worlds. This can’t happen, she tells him one night in a dream. The next morning is the first day he coughs up petals, narrow and snowy white as they land in his palm. He must have inhaled them at some point, he thinks, although they don’t look mangled enough for that. Maybe now that they’re gone, he won’t cough anymore.

He’s utterly, completely wrong.

 Time passes, somehow both fast and slow. Ichigo’s birthday passes by nearly unremarked by his own choice: he picks at his birthday dinner, eating only enough in between coughing fits to spare Yuzu’s feelings. He ignores the gifts his family gives him.

Soon it has been a year. Ichigo’s coughing just gets worse and worse, and one morning in class he coughs so hard that he brings up something new: an entire, bloodied snowdrop. He doesn’t hide it quickly enough; his teacher and classmates are staring at him. Orihime’s crying, big, fat tears dripping down her cheeks. Uryuu just stares behind his glasses.

“Would you like to go to the nurse?” the teacher asks. Ichigo just shakes his head and coughs again.

“Sorry, sensei,” he apologizes in a low tone. He doesn’t even look up when Orihime and Uryuu run from the classroom a few minutes later. He’s seen Orihime with her phone, one that looks like Rukia’s denreishinki and – this time, when he coughs, he brings up only bright red blood.

That night when he dreams of her she is coughing too, blood spattering red down the front of a white yukata just like the one she wore before her near-execution. It doesn’t make any sense, but there’s a strawberry flower in Rukia’s hands.

When Ichigo coughs up another three perfect, bloodied snowdrops, one of them in front of his father, Isshin forces him into the clinic’s x-ray machine.

He’s sheet-white when he looks at the resulting film. “Hanahaki,” Isshin says roughly. “You have – you have snowdrops growing in your lungs, son.”

Ichigo scrubs at the back of his neck with one hand, and tries to hold in a cough. “Isn’t that a thing that boys in bad manga get?” He tries for a sneer, but just coughs blood and petals into a white tissue.

Isshin’s expression is grave as he sits across from his son. “I saw a case of it…once. You’re in love with Rukia, aren’t you?” he asks.

He wants to deny it. Wants to say, With that midget? Are you joking? But instead all that comes out is a low, “Yeah.”

“There’s nothing I can give you for it,” his father says. He looks old, suddenly. Much more than he ever has before.

“So, what then?” Ichigo asks.

But Isshin says, “There isn’t anything I can do.”

 -------

“Rukia! Lieutenant, we need to get you to the Fourth,” Kiyone exclaims over Rukia’s coughing fit. Though she tries to shake her head, she can’t get enough air into her lungs to do anything but hack up petals and entire flowers. She swears there’s even a strawberry amidst the mess, but everything is covered in her blood.

“I’m –”

“You’re not fine, Lieutenant,” Sentarou cuts in. He summons a hell butterfly with a thought and sends it winging toward the Fourth Division. “I’ve let them know we’re coming. Climb on,” he says, surprisingly gentle.

But Rukia reels back from him, thinking of being carried on Ichigo’s back so many months ago, of feeling him strong beneath her as he ran along rooftops to find and destroy a hollow. It sparks another coughing fit of white petals and red blood, and before she can protest Sentarou and Kiyone – so often fighting – pick her up between them and take off at a run, one holding her under her arms and the other beneath her legs. It’s not the same – thankfully – as being carried by Ichigo. But it’s damned uncomfortable, and she’s grateful that the pathetic display only lasts a few minutes, until they’ve bundled her into the Fourth and practically shoved her at Isane.

And when Isane watches her struggle to her feet as she coughs up strawberry flowers there is so much pity in her eyes that Rukia doesn’t protest when she is led to a private room. “How long have you been coughing up flowers, Lieutenant Kuchiki?” Isane asks when the door is closed and they are alone.

Rukia’s cheeks flush and pale by turns. “Months,” she finally admits as she allows Isane to listen to her heart and lungs, to peer into her mouth.

“Strawberry flowers,” the other woman observes calmly. “I’m going to conduct some additional tests, Kuchiki-san. They won’t hurt.”

The tests themselves don’t hurt, but Rukia has coughed herself raw by the time they are done and Isane’s limpid eyes are looking at her again. She brings tea and Rukia gulps it down eagerly to soothe her throat, heedless of any kind of propriety. “Well?” she asks finally.

“You already know what you have, Kuchiki-san,” Isane says gently. “Hanahaki Disease. And it’s quite advanced – the flowers are embedded extensively in your lungs. You are lucky that strawberry plants are small and don’t have hard branches.”

She did already know – but the words still steal the breath from Rukia’s lungs. Hanahaki. The disease of unrequited love. Ichigo doesn’t love her. But she has already made promises; has already spoken to Urahara. Even if all that sits between them is friendship, she won’t go back on her promise to restore Ichigo’s powers by any means necessary. “Is there anything that can be done?” Rukia asks quietly.

“I’m sorry, Kuchiki-san. There is only one cure for Hanahaki: being loved in return.”

 -----------

Seventeen months after Ichigo loses his powers, he meets the Fullbringers and thinks: maybe they have the answers. Soon he has power again. It’s a strange power, brought forth when he holds the useless substitute badge and thinks of Rukia. Or maybe it isn’t that strange; after all, the angry redhead named Riruka has told him that fullbring is a power of love.

And then it all falls apart again. Tsukishima has somehow wormed his way into everyone’s lives as Ichigo’s “cousin”. Uryuu gets hurt. And on a rainy night, Ginjo steals Ichigo’s fullbring powers and leaves him kneeling on the ground, powerless as he coughs up entire stalks of snowdrops, screaming through a throat ripped raw, “Give me back my powers, Ginjo!”

He should have expected this last betrayal: a sword stabbing him in the back through his chest, a point of blinding pain amid the pain of lungs tired from growing flowers, amid the pain of a heart that beats for a dead woman.

When he turns his head, body held captive by the glowing blue blade, Kisuke and his father are there. “You too?” he asks, through a sob.

But: “You should be able to see her now,” Isshin says.

And then she’s there, reappearing in his eyes: standing behind him, hands on the hilt of a sword of pure blue light. In the darkness Rukia is pale, hair short and eyes big in a slender face. “Rukia,” he whispers.

Then power explodes outwards from the sword in his chest, swirling around him like a tornado, and when Ichigo can see again he is wearing a shihakusho once more. There is something new: black markings cover the backs of his hands and Zangetsu is shorter and wider than it was. Tsukishima and Ginjo are staring at him, but Ichigo has eyes only for Rukia – Rukia, who drops the glowing blue sword, bends over double, and coughs violently until bloodied flowers land in her hands.

He sticks Zangetsu in the ground and he’s in front of her without thinking about it. The fullbringers still need to be dealt with, but. But he’s staring at her and at the strawberry flowers in her palms. “You have Hanahaki,” Ichigo says hoarsely. The rain is dying down, but droplets of water wash Rukia’s blood from the flowers.

“It’s nothing. What about you? I turn my back and you’ve gotten pathetic,” Rukia protests, and lifts her hand to hit him over the head.

Ichigo’s hand on her wrist stops her. “It’s not nothing,” he says, and his other hand opens, revealing the bloodied snowdrop.

“Oh,” she whispers.

“Oh,” Ichigo agrees. For the shape of the flower is mimicked on Rukia’s lieutenant’s badge – a promotion he didn’t know about.

“Ichigo.” Her voice is soft, though hoarse from coughing. Their eyes meet, wide and dark as the rain stops.

“Rukia.” His hand is still on her wrist, but it slides to twine their fingers together. The silk of her tekko is soft against his skin, a contrast to the calluses on her fingers.

“Yes.” They don’t kiss – they don’t even speak the words. But Ichigo can breathe easier all of a sudden, and he senses the moment that she can too. And he thinks that he won’t cough up snowdrops anymore. And that she won’t choke on strawberry flowers.

 Later, when Ginjo and Tsukishima are dead and Ichigo and Rukia are both in Soul Society again, Isane examines them. “You will both make a full recovery,” she pronounces when she has performed diagnostic kido and listened to their lungs. “There is no trace of Hanahaki Disease in either of you, and the kido I have performed will heal the damage to your lungs.” Then she looks at them both, and says quietly, “I’m so glad.” With a smile on her face she dismisses them, and Ichigo’s fingers twine with Rukia’s again as they leave the relief station.

“Rukia,” he says quietly, and she turns to him. Their eyes meet before their lips do, and they share a soft kiss beneath the sunlight. There will be complications: she has a job to do here in the Seireitei and he is still seventeen and in his final year of high school. But for just a moment they breathe each other’s air, free of snowdrops and strawberry flowers for the first time in seventeen months.

[cheshiresense]

Oh, can I ask for Ichigo in a Witcher AU (if you've watched the show ? Medieval Fantasy Generic AU if you haven't...)

I’m afraid the only thing I know about the Witcher is that the main character is this really strong antisocial grumpy dude that nobody likes, who goes around killing monsters for money, and one day he saves a guy who becomes like his PR manager/best friend or something. That’s it. So I’ll have to go with a generic medieval fantasy AU instead.

1. Ichigo is a mercenary, a monster-killer-for-hire (which is the only bit of the Witcher I can incorporate lmao). But yeah, he’s a mercenary, trained by his family, who have been hermits in like the Forest of Menos or something since before Ichigo was born because the Kingdom of Seireitei exiled them ages ago for dabbling in dangerous magic. Oh, normal magic is fine, the healing chants that their clerics learn, the potions and elixirs that their druids make, the purifying prayers their priests all know to defend the kingdom from ghosts and demons.

But the Shibas had always been a little too curious for their own good, more interested in pushing the boundaries of magic than being afraid of it, and even before their exile, they’d been fairly well-known for their summoning magic, which already made them powerful, one of the biggest noble families of the kingdom with a specialized branch of magic passed down through their line. But then they discovered elemental magic, and even worse, they refused to hand over their research and knowledge to concerned parties who would’ve been able to monitor its usage more responsibly. That was the last straw, as far as the church and the other nobility and the government were concerned. Some wanted that magic for themselves, others wanted to erase all traces of it. Most of the Shibas were hunted down and killed, the rest scattered, and summoning magic was banned in their wake. Elemental magic left with them, not a single page of notes left behind in their wake, a final fuck-you to the kingdom they’d once served so faithfully.

Decades down the road, the Shiba name is barely remembered and never spoken of. Ichigo’s left home after deciding the hermit life really wasn’t for him and he’d like to see more of the world. He knows his history, knows to stay out of Seireitei, so he makes his living by wandering the lands around his ancestral kingdom. Mercenaries like him can find work so long as there are monsters, and there are monsters everywhere, and Ichigo is good at his job, especially with his family’s magics at his disposal. There was a reason Seireitei drove the Shibas to death and ruin the same way they annihilated the Quincy kingdom in the east, too scared of the exorcist warriors they trained to tolerate their existence. Fear has always been a powerful motivator.

2. Meanwhile, back in Seireitei, a huge fuss is kicked up when one of the Kuchikis’ youngest up and coming officers ends up freezing the entire sparring yard one day at the Academy after snapping under the stress of constant bullying for coming from lowborn roots. She collapses immediately after, but there’s no taking back all the frozen trees and grass and buildings in the vicinity. Incorporating ice magic into her blade definitely counts as elemental magic, one thing leads to another, and by the time she wakes up, she’s been locked up in a cell somewhere because half the kingdom wants to know how she did it so they can do it too while the other half wants her dead. Everyone agrees that they can’t risk her falling into the wrong hands or under the wrong influence. Weeks later, when her execution seems imminent, her brother-in-law and head of house manages to sneak her out of the prison and back to the Kuchiki estate, where he then practically throws her at a portal gate already open and waiting for her.

“You cannot remain here,” Byakuya tells her, cold and aloof like he doesn’t care at all, but the grip he has on her shoulders is almost bruising. “Seireitei is not kind to those who are too different.” He shoves a bag into her arms. “This is all I can do for you. This portal will take you to the outer edge of Rukongai. Do not use ice magic. Do not come back. If you are found within Seireitei after tonight, I will not save you again. Do you understand?”

Rukia wants to cry and rage and beg Byakuya to make this all go away, she’s actually still not entirely sure what she did wrong, accidental magical outbursts don’t happen every day but they’re pretty common in students just beginning their magical studies. What did it matter if she froze a few things? She didn’t even hurt anyone! Was ice magic really so terrible? She’d never even heard of anyone using it before.

But she also promised herself that she wouldn’t do anything to dishonour the Kuchiki name after Byakuya was kind enough to continue looking after her just because he’d loved her sister.

So she swallows down her protests and takes the supplies, and they both pretend she doesn’t have tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

“Will I see you again?” She can’t help asking.

Byakuya’s face looks carved from stone. “I sincerely hope not.” And then he pushes her through the gate.

Rukia staggers out somewhere on the outskirts of Rukongai, the surrounding expanse of land that lies between Seireitei and the other kingdoms. The portal snaps shut behind her, and then she really is well and truly alone. It isn’t as if she’s never been in Rukongai before, she and her sister were born here after all, but she’d never been here, so far out, so much closer to the rest of the world than Seireitei.

So she does what she’s wanted to do for weeks but wouldn’t let herself when there were guards watching - she spends the next ten minutes or so huddled on the ground sobbing her eyes out, because now she has no family, no home, and no idea where to go from here. She’s no stranger to survival - at the very least, she knows how to barter and trade, look out for pickpockets and navigate towns without standing out too badly, which is actually more than she can say for a lot of highborn kids, but she’s also completely alone, and she wasn’t even out of the Academy yet. If she stumbles on monsters, which is more likely the farther away she is from Seireitei, she’s probably going to end up very dead.

Eventually, she stops, scrubs her face clean, and digs through her pack to see what Byakuya had given her. Money, clothes, a bit of food and water under preservation spells, a map of Rukongai, a couple daggers, and some healing salve and bandages. It’s better than she expected, less than she hoped for, but anything less than a magic wand to turn back time is less than she hoped for.

In the end, all she can do is shoulder her pack and begin trudging her way towards the nearest town. Whining about the unfairness of it all isn’t going to help her, and night will fall soon. The last thing she wants is to be caught out in the middle of nowhere when the sun goes down.

3. Of course, it’s just Rukia’s luck when two weeks later, trouble runs into her. One moment, she’s counting coins in the room of another inn (she’s already running low, with no real job prospects in sight), the next, there’s shouting and screaming from outside, and in the distance, a lone wolf’s howl splits the night.

In the room next to hers, Ichigo’s eyes snap open. Oh good, his meal ticket has arrived.

By the time Rukia’s good sense is overridden by the desire to figure out what is going on, someone - from the room beside hers - has already leapt out the window, more shouting and screaming and running footsteps have stampeded through the streets below, angry snarls has followed, and Rukia bursts outside with a dagger clutched tight in her hand just in time to see a cloaked figure whirl around the fangs and claws of a beast, a werewolf, a blade of silver in his hand, and Rukia barely even sees the rise and fall of it before the werewolf has lost both arms. It barely has time to howl in agony as it collapses to the ground, and then orange light sparks at the stranger’s fingertips, and a moment later, the werewolf has burst into flames.

Rukia gawks like an idiot because she’s definitely never seen a spell like that before, and more than that, the stranger made the whole fight look easy. Against a werewolf.

The street is silent once the werewolf dies. No one else is around, and the stranger simply straightens and turns. It takes her a few seconds to realize he’s leaving.

It takes her less than that to run after him.

If this man knows fire magic, surely he would know something about ice magic too? But, more than that, he is strong. If she can be half as strong as him, then maybe, maybe, even if she can never go home again, she might at least be able to make something of herself.

4. Ichigo would like it to be known that he had not agreed to this. But this stupid, ridiculously weak girl won’t stop following him around, and the one time he’d shaken her and left her behind in between towns, his conscience had forced him to double-back when he’d heard from someone in the next town that there’d been a pack of wargs roaming the surrounding hills. Of course, because either his luck was shit or the girl’s luck was shit, he’d arrived just in time to prevent her death-by-warg.

She really was useless with those daggers.

“So teach me how to be better then!” The girl demands, a humiliated flush high in her cheeks but a stubborn tilt to her chin. She looks scruffy and tired, and Ichigo has no idea what she’s doing on her own because it’s pretty fucking clear she’s not used to nomadic life. But she seems to want to get stronger, and everybody has to start somewhere, so Ichigo supposes he can’t begrudge her ambitions, whatever they might be.

Still, “I don’t do anything for free,” Ichigo tells her, even though that’s not strictly true considering he’s already saved her life for free.

The girl glares at him because they both know full well she barely has enough money for meals and a roof over her head these days, but then she offers, “Teach me, and once I get strong enough, I’ll become a mercenary too. Then, I’ll give you a portion of my pay for however long it takes me to clear my debt.”

Ichigo stares dubiously at her, at her dirty but expensive clothes, at her daggers that would probably cost Ichigo half a year’s worth of bounties, at delicate hands unused to the wilderness. But he also takes in the way she crosses her arms and scowls back with a desperate sort of defiance and steel in her spine, and in the end, he heaves a sigh.

“You better keep your word,” He warns her. “Or I’ll take your head myself.”

The girl brightens. Ichigo already regrets everything.

But from that point on, he gains a travelling companion/pseudo-apprentice. Her name is Rukia - no last name - but it becomes pretty clear why when he starts her magic studies by telling her to show him what she already knows. It’s all basic stuff, and she’s not even that good at it, but then she also haltingly admits to an uncontrolled burst of ice magic, and Ichigo gets a pretty good idea why she’s wandering around like a ruffian.

After that, he tells her of Seireitei’s glorious history, specifically the parts the kingdom has swept under the rug, and the consequences of using elemental magic even outside of Seireitei. Not illegal, but not wise to flaunt either.

“But you know it too!” Rukia points out. “Fire is elemental magic, isn’t it?”

Ichigo grunts an affirmative. “Yeah, and I either make sure nobody’s around, or if they ask, I show them some matches and pretend they just didn’t see it.”

And then, fed-up with talking, he shoves her into the river at their feet. She screeches the whole way in and the whole way back up. “ICHIGO!”

Ichigo smiles meanly. “If you want to learn elemental magic, you need a better foundation first. Let’s start with meditation.”

If she gets good enough one day to even halfway succeed in murdering him the way her furious black glare tells him she wants to, he’ll consider these lessons worth it.

5. And basically I just want these two to become badass mercenaries together. Ichigo was totally fine and prepared to spend the rest of his life alone, with maybe the occasional trip home to visit family. But then Rukia barrelled into his life and refused to leave, and as he gets to know her and vice-versa, he supposes there are (significantly) worse people in the world. She’s a quick learner, and she doesn’t complain, she works hard, and their somewhat antagonistic relationship smooths out with time, enough that eventually it becomes second nature to look for her first. And even after Ichigo deems her good enough to strike off on her own, all she does is remind him of her debt to him and refuse to leave. He feels like that’s going to become a theme in their lives.

Their little group probably expands over time. They bump into a Quincy exorcist, one of the last of a lost kingdom. Ishida is even pricklier than Ichigo but he can shoot a target blind and he takes to following them too after the three of them lay waste to a cave full of vampires with a combination of elemental magic and fancy arrows. Apparently, the scholar in him just can’t leave a completely unknown branch of magic alone.

They pick up more people - Kisuke and Yoruichi, two survivors of a caravan train that had been travelling from Seireitei to Las Noches (”Shihouin,” Rukia whispers to Ichigo the moment she lays eyes on Yoruichi’s eyes and hair and skin) that had been overrun by nightwraiths. For apparent nobles, they don’t seem to be in any haste to return to their kingdom or call for better aid than three suspicious mercenaries. In fact, Yoruichi seems overjoyed to cut her hair and purchase a concealment tattoo for her eyes from Ichigo and basically take to monster-hunting with the enthusiasm of a child let out to play for the first time. Kisuke didn’t even look like nobility to begin with and won’t stop pestering Ichigo about his magic the moment he spots him making a campfire without flint.

They get Mizuiro, a bard who smiles through the massacre of the bandit camp that had abducted him, and the enhancements he hums in battle are impressively efficient in speeding up their movements or strengthening their blows or reinforcing their shields. Then they get Inoue, a healer with spells in her repertoire as unknown as elemental magic, and her friend Tatsuki, a martial artist without a drop of magic in her but can give Ichigo a run for his money in a spar.

They  probably bump into another group of bandits except this one’s a bit weird (”We’re not really bandits,” One of them, Yumichika, claims), but that’s the label people have slapped on them, it’s what happens when you loot the rich (”They can usually afford strong fighters,” The leader Kenpachi grouches) and give to the poor (”What the fuck am I supposed to do with a mountain of gold?” Kenpachi demands). And somehow or other (obviously when Ichigo wasn’t fucking looking), Kenpachi and his people don’t leave either, and by this point, they’ve pretty much gained a bit of a reputation as some kind of mini-organization of protectors roaming the countryside, it’s fucking ridiculous and Ichigo regrets all his life choices but especially when Renji and Ikkaku and Rukia and Tatsuki get into another knock-down drag-out fight at an inn or a tavern and Ichigo’s the one who has to pay for the damages.

But anyway, eventually, Ichigo probably takes them all home where they can be his family’s problem instead. Needless to say, they get on like a house on fire, Kisuke invents like three new branches of magic in the Shiba library in the space of a week, Yoruichi and Kuukaku take to each other like long-lost soulmates, and in general, there’s just a lot of Found Family Feels. Kenpachi is in heaven, he’s never had this many people who can knock him on his ass and be down for another round.

And EVENTUALLY, someone from Seireitei probably comes to poke their nose into where it doesn’t belong because How Dare some lowborn mercenaries go around taking all the monster-hunting business away from the kingdom? Also Kaien may or may not have started spreading rumours of elemental magic and summoning magic and other never-before-seen-or-heard-of magic that makes Seireitei Very Anxious. It devolves the way it always does and results in the usual - Seireitei sends a bunch of their military in to seize everything that should be under their control and to get rid of any loose ends.

Ichigo, already stressed from the madhouse inmates he lives with (THIS IS THE WHOLE REASON HE LEFT IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND THEN HE CAME BACK AND MADE IT TEN TIMES WORSE), and he is Absolutely Delighted when Seireitei gives him the perfect excuse to blow off some steam.

And then idk there’s probably a revolution cuz the citizens and surrounding kingdoms are sick of Seireitei’s shit, none of the Shibas want to be crowned though because wow, what a waste of time, sounds boring, so Rukia is like maybe my brother can do it, he’s responsible and stuff, so they give the crown to him, and Rukia gives him an awkward hug, no hard feelings but she’s not sticking around, and the Shibas are given a place back in the city and everybody knows not to fuck with them and Kisuke starts publishing all their inventions and spreading them so even normal everyday people can learn. And then Ishida’s probably like I wanna rebuild my kingdom but there’s an asshole living in it at the moment who leads a cult and pretends he’s a messiah come to save us all so we need to kill him first, and Ichigo’s like DID YOU SAY MURDER AND AWAY FROM HERE I AM SO DOWN, and then basically Ichigo’s Menagerie of Misfit Mercenaries go to take back Wahrwelt from Yhwach, but that’s another story.

[pinkhairedlily]

Grab It Before It Passes

Chapter 10 of  The Spring He Came Back | 10 of 12

What was she thinking? She was late to work because she slept in. And why did she sleep in? Because she and Hitsugaya talked until morning. Nice sabotaging your business, Hinamori. She arrived in front of her shop, breathless from her fast cycling, and she was greeted by a small line of her constant customers. When the morning storm died down, she started to prepare reserved bouquets despite feeling lightheaded. It was already lunch time when she finished all her orders and walk-ins.

The bell on the door rang again, and she stood up from the counter to meet her next customer. Maybe I’ll skip lunch today.

“Don’t skip lunch today.” Hitsugaya was yawning as he entered the shop. Hinamori was thankful he got rid of the glasses and kept his old hairstyle. He waved her closer and indicated the bento in his hands. “Sorry for keeping you up until morning.”

If there were other customers right now, I’m pretty sure his words will be taken out of context. Well, we were kind of intimate last night. Hinamori soothed the forming ache on her temples. He rushed to her side and cupped her face anxiously. “Are you okay Momo?”

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” a supplier came in at that inopportune moment, a crate of azaleas in their hands.

Before Hinamori could go to them, Hitsugaya bridged the distance in quick strides and took the crate. “No, is this all? Hinamori has a headache so please let me get this.”

“Ah, Dr. Hitsugaya.” The supplier recognized him and instantly became awed at meeting one of Soul Society’s prodigies. “Of course, of course. Uh, wait, Hinamori, you’re still set for farm visit?”

Trying to control her blush, Hinamori smiled at her supplier. “Yes. I’ll see you at 4. Thank you.” She followed them to the door and placed a lunch break sign. “Please don’t do that again when I’m at work.”

“I’m sorry. I acted on instinct.” Hitsugaya placed the bento boxes on a nearby table and the aroma escaping from the box ushered her closer.

It didn’t occur to her that she should dwell on his statement. She was hungry, and she needed caffeine. She devoured her food and answered Hitsugaya’s questions on flowers in between bites. “Aren’t you eating?” she asked while she took a large bite from a tempura.

“I also woke up late so I just went straight to my lunch meeting at the academy. Too bad I wasn’t able to buy you tea on the way here.” He stifled a yawn again.

Hinamori finished the last of her meal, and set aside the box. She checked the counter once more before she gestured him to stand and follow her. “Let’s drop by quickly at my favorite café.”

--------------------------

“Black tea with an extra shot of black tea for Momo,” the owner, Yuki, called out. “And uh, iced americano for Hitsu-“

A visibly irked Hitsugaya took both cups from his hand. “Thank you. Now, Momo can we go?”

“Hey Yuki. Thanks again. You always have my back on tiring days.” Hinamori flashed him an apologetic smile which he shrugged off. He has a knowing gleam in his eyes, and he was obviously trying to send a message.

“What do you mean? You’re my favorite customer. Come again tomorrow?”

“You bet. I gotta go. It’s a busy day.” Hinamori was slowly getting annoyed by Hitsugaya’s impatient tapping on the counter. She didn’t know what set him off, but they rushed off from the café. “What’s wrong with you, Shirou?”

He walked along with her until they reached the flower shop. “I gotta go for another set of meetings. What time do you close?”

“I have to go by four. Now, please tell me what irritated you in that café because I needed my favorite drink and you’re making my headache worse.”

“He knows your favorite brew.” And with that, he shuffled away like his feet was on fire.

And now she too was pissed and exasperated by his childish behavior. Very Hitsugaya of him. “He is a barista. Isn’t he supposed to know what my preferred brew is?”

--------------------------

She was mounting her bicycle when he came around. Surprisingly, he bought a bicycle of his own. “Sorry Shirou. I need to go to the flower farm.”

“Can I go with you? I’m also done with the meetings for today.” Recalling that he was not able to reserve a hotel and would most likely go back with her to the compound, she finally agreed.

They arrived at her supplier’s flower farm after a 30-minute ride. Hitsugaya seemed to give her space as he stayed behind with the welcoming staff and answered their questions about his life abroad. She went with her supplier and surveyed the next batch of flowers she would pick for the next batch of delivery. The Peruvian lilies were not ripe for picking as it was still very early in the spring as well as the dahlias. She eventually settled on tulips, gardenias, and daisies.

“Hinamori, can you check on my peonies and gerbera? We have a bad outbreak of thrips this time.”

“No problem. I’ll look around a little bit more.” It was a good thing she bought her sampling kit. She constructed a makeshift laboratory in her room a year after she became a florist where she studied common plant pests. She would provide her personal concoctions from natural ingredients to deter continued onset. Inorganic pesticides have more lasting side-effects on the flowers’ blooming time which would inevitably affect her sales.

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.” They were shifting their feet nervously on the ground. “But are you and the professor together?”

Hinamori squatted down to the level of the flowers, checking the underside of the leaves for signs of the culprit. “No, we’re just friends.”

“He’s a really in-demand person with his recent re-appearance here in town, but he finds time for you.”

She proceeded to the next plot. There was a lot from her naked eye. “Maybe he’s just good at scheduling his tasks and it so happened that he’s relatively free today.” It was bad but not unmanageable.

“I heard he turned down speeches in museums and luncheons. Town gossip.”

Could they have been gossiping about their past? If he gets associated again with her and it backfires, what would she do? “It’s gossip so it’s not reliable either.”

The supplier was trying their best to get their point across. “I’m saying, he really looks out for you. It couldn’t be any more obvious, and it would do you good if you allow yourself to accept it.” Contented with what they said, the supplier retreated from her space and returned to the staff house.

She had a bad habit of repressing these discussions when she was occupied with something else, and would only recall them just as she was falling asleep. She pushed it at the back of her mind until she wrapped up with sampling. Finally done, she saw Hitsugaya in the middle of the azalea field. She quickly made a flower crown from the discarded flowers and went to him.

Quietly sneaking behind him, she successfully landed the crown of yellow, orange, and red daisies on his immaculate silver hair. She chuckled at the bright contrast. “Pretty boy.”

“Come here then.” He grabbed her hand and slid a bracelet of white azaleas on her wrist. He also added a small circle of twine with a lone flower on her ring finger. “Pretty girl.”

It couldn’t be any more obvious. Again, she pushed this memory at the back of her mind.

--------------------------

She was losing sleep for two days in a row. Baba accidentally destroyed the heater in Hinamori’s room, and in Hitsugaya’s room so they huddled together in her room. Baba was quite happy with the arrangement, but Hinamori was not. Not when her futon was beside Hitsugaya instead of Baba being in the middle. It also didn’t help that he would always turn in his sleep and reach out for her hand. She would be there lying, her hand warm in his, his sleeping face in front of hers, and her heart beating out of control.

Trying to have some semblance of normality in her life, she stopped seeing him for lunch, making up excuses that she was busy with accounting and meeting suppliers. But he dropped her off those two mornings, earning interested glances from her customers and showed up a few minutes before she closed shop. Hitsugaya showed up again, bringing cookies this time and her favorite brew in ice. He was spending an awful lot of time in her favorite café. “Yuki makes the best americano and the best oat cookies,” he said as he munched on one.

“Thanks, I need a sugar rush.” Hinamori was tired, she didn’t think much of it when she leaned in and took a bite directly from a cookie still in his hand. As any other moments recently, it was also the exact time when Rukia, Renji, and Rangiku entered the shop.

“Looks like you didn’t need our help at all, Professor,” Rangiku jeered.

And like any other moments recently, both of them would burst into intense redness. The 3Rs bought cakes for sharing and some wine. Rukia and Renji were full-time faculty in the academy and were officially together. They were set to be wed this year, but the two were still finalizing how they would break the news of wedding bells to Byakuya. Rangiku, on the other hand, became a freelance educator for the poor and disadvantaged in nearby towns. She was also recognized as an affiliate professor of the academy. Her work allowed her to reconnect again with her childhood friend, Gin. Hinamori was yet to meet the guy, but she guessed they were probably in the dating stage already. They were lucky – to have found friendship and love and have these requited.

Stop thinking about IT, Momo, she told herself.

“Hey, Momo, you’re up for a beach trip?” Renji asked. “It’s your day-off tomorrow, right?”

“I really can’t. I have to take care of Baba.” She hoped to sit out this one because these rumbling emotions were becoming too much for her to bear in silence.

“This one’s on you, Hitsugaya. Good luck.” Their friends snickered on the bet that he can persuade Hinamori to go.

--------------------------

For some reason, she cannot say no to him. Nor Baba. Her grandmother was left in care of two of the best medical staff and a neighbor who will send text messages to Hinamori and Hitsugaya every hour. Since she traveled an hour by train and was already here, she might as well enjoy it.

It somehow escaped her mind that she couldn’t swim so she stayed on the beach, perfectly fine in a summer dress and a slice of watermelon to cool off the heat. When she saw Hitsugaya running headfirst towards the water with his abs on full display, she almost choked on her fruit.

He really grew up. He’s not shorter than me anymore, and he has muscles. Why does he have abs? Hinamori was at the end of her wits, and the watermelon was not helping cool her down. She retreated to their space and laid down under the shade of the large umbrella. Maybe I should sleep my time away.

After a few minutes, she heard him calling her name. Acting asleep, she actively ignored him. “Momo, are you okay?” His figure loomed before her, the abs directly in her view. She fluttered her eyes open and gave the most annoyed look she could at the dripping Hitsugaya. “Sunblock please, Momo?”

“I’m trying to sleep here!” She huffed indignantly and pulled out her reef-safe sunblock, squeezed out a rather large amount and slapped it on his cheeks.

“You weren’t sleeping. You were pretending.”

“Shut up, I’m applying some protection on your face. Also you’re an idiot because why would you run to the waters first?” She held his chin on her hands and gently lathered the rest of the sunblock on his face. “Okay, you’re good to go.”

“I can stay for a few seconds. Doesn’t this take a minute to set?” His eyes were never left her face. What was this atmosphere?!

“Go get a room,” Rangiku shouted from the water. “I’m getting lonely in here.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea!” Hitsugaya shouted back to Rangiku. “Sorry about that Momo. I’ll leave you alone.”

What did just happen? Is this what they call flirting? Hinamori was truly exasperated so she set out on a walk by the beach. After a few minutes, Rukia joined her pace. Like her, Rukia didn’t know how to swim.

“It’s pretty confusing, huh?” was her first statement.

“Why is everyone talking as if they have the same topic in mind and I’m out of the loop. Am I missing something here?”

“Momo, you’re dissociating again.” She patted her back and smelled in the breeze. “It’s all out in the open and you just have to step forward and grab it.”

“Can you all stop talking in abstract?” Hinamori pleaded, tired from discerning and reading between the lines.

“From someone who noticed it only later in life, notice it now. We’ve seen it coming, but it’s different if you finally realize it. Grab it now before it passes.”

It was a fairly normal beach trip with lots of card games and a watermelon eating contest between Hitsugaya and Renji. By landslide, the watermelon master Hitsugaya Toushirou won. They ended the trip with sparklers, and Rangiku said they have to make a wish before they ran out. In her mind, she only wished for one thing. It was the one thing she should have said aloud when they were kids and when he left ten years ago. On the trip back home, they sat beside each other.

“What did you wish for?” Hitsugaya asked. His cheeks were flushed red from the sun.

She looked at him straight in the eye and said her wish aloud. “For you to stay.”

It has become a habit, him reaching out to touch her hand and her allowing his fingers to wound through hers. “You’re trembling.”

“Don’t go.”

He kept their wound hands inside his jacket’s pocket in an effort to keep her warm, mistaking her confrontation with her feelings with the remnants of winter. “Thank you, Momo.”

NEXT CHAPTER | 11 OF 12 | INTO THE WONDERFUL UNKNOWN

[cate-deriana]

Synchronicity

So, here is my first contribution to IRmonth20. It may be a little messy and all over the place but I wanted to get this headcanon idea out :D So yeah, enjoy!

Prompt #4 - crossing blades, crossing hearts

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It had been two days – although it had more felt like ages – since their arrival in the Royal Realm. Apart from strange meetings with even stranger residents, well zero squad members if you wanted to be precise, nothing really noteworthy had occurred… until that morning.

“So starting today the two of you will be training together.” Ichibei threw at them without further explanation.

It took a few seconds to sink in, before Ichigo tilted his head with a raised eyebrow looking at the so-called ‘leader’ of this squad with a questioning expression: “Sorry… what?”

“Are we playing deaf, Kurosaki Ichigo? The final battle is just around the corner, we don’t have time for this. You and Kuchiki will be training together. You have chemistry, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Ichigo peeked over to Rukia standing next to him from the corner of an eye, then back to Ichibei: “I am fine with that. But Rukia had barely two days to recover, she nearly died and you want her to start training again today?”

Now the zero squad leader was the one to raise an eyebrow – a rare sight: “Well, do you want to win the war or do you want us all to die?”

The orange haired shinigami’s expression darkened but his eyes glared with determination: “I want to win, of course. But…” He tried to object again but was cut off by Rukia: “Stop insulting my abilities! I am able to decide if I’m ready to train again for myself.”

She had turned to face him visibly angered.

He did the same trying to cool down his temper. Otherwise things would get out of hand rather quickly: “This is not about your abilities it’s…”

“Stop protecting me!” She shot at him.

Screw his temper.

“Oh, sorry I thought that was the deal: I am protecting you and you are protecting me that’s how it works!”

The argument went on while Ichibei was watching them slightly shaking his head: “Yeah, you two have good chemistry. Hopefully that’ll save us all.”

----------------------------

“So, that’s the training ground you’ll be using. Quarters are over there and behind that you’ll find one of those hot springs to heal your wounds and recover. You’ll be training together, eating together, sleeping together. … And with sleeping together I don’t mean sleeping with each other. That’s not what you have to do – unless you want to of course, I’ve heard there was some unresolved tension. I’ll come to check on you once in a while. Any questions? No? Then I’ll see you around.”

  ----------------------------

That was what Ichibei had said before leaving them, alone. About three or four days had passed since. They had been training constantly for something the squad leader had called ‘reiatsu syncing’. Seemingly the zero division and some other questionable ex-shinigami, namely Urahara Kisuke, believed there was a possibility to defeat the ‘future foreseeing’ Juhabach with some telepathic ability that would make it impossible for him to take a look in said future because he would not be able to foresee what he could not see. Why they believed Juhabach was even able to see the future was beyond Ichigo. As far as he knew he wasn’t, maybe they knew more than him. But that wasn’t the point.

They of course were all convinced that only Rukia and him would be able to gain this telepathy ‘reiatsu syncing’ ability. The reason? Well, apparently it was because they had more than once shared the same reiatsu before. He wasn’t sure if he should really believe them and their far-fetched theories. Just because Rukia had transferred her powers to him twice didn’t necessarily conclude in them being able to communicate without words. Ok, maybe there had been moments when he had been sure to know exactly what she was thinking but… that was not the same as talking through mere thoughts, was it?

“When will you finally stop holding back, Ichigo?”

Rukia’s scolding voice brought him back to reality. They were in the middle of training, no miraculous telepathic conversation had occurred yet.

“I am not holding back.” He sounded as if he had to convince himself as well.

“Yes you are. I know how strong you really are so stop holding back and come at me with full force. Where is the point in training if you can’t even do that?” Her voice wasn’t angered although she hated him for going easy on her, for underestimating her out of fear she might get hurt.

“If I come at you with full force I might kill you.” Ichigo stated dryly.

She crossed her arms, her tone a little scolding: “I don’t want you to kill me I want you to start fighting seriously. I am not that weak you know?” Rukia let out a sigh putting Sode no Shirayuki down. “I guess we should have started with those stupid training swords. That way you wouldn’t have to be afraid of accidentally cutting me in half.” The irony in her voice was evident. “Though I have at least learned how to properly wield a sword. I should be the one at advantage here not someone who thought he could just chop a Menos into tiny little pieces to reach its top.” She shook her head disbelieving adding a mumbled “Stupid” to her rant.

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t have the privilege to go to Shino Academy just to drop out midway cause I have a wealthy brother.” Ichigo tried to counterattack with his equally sarcastic remark.

Rukia’s eyes darkened: “You know what? Renji wouldn’t hold back.” Her reiatsu rose to a dangerous level. “Because he acknowledges me as a warrior.”

Ichigo’s expression changed in an instant after hearing the red head’s name from her mouth, he was in fighting mode and mood obviously: “You want me to go all out, yeah?” He didn’t wait for an answer his hand already on the arm holding his sword.

“Ban-kai!”

Rukia watched his transformation with a content smile as he was engulfed in black: “Now we’re talking.”

Maybe she should have given him a moment, given them a moment but one she didn’t want to get into another argument with him again and two she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. “Bankai.” It echoed in the air before the training ground was covered with a thin ice layer, the temperature gradually dropping.

Ichigo didn’t have any time to comprehend what happened when her sword suddenly clashed with his really close to his face. He didn’t see her attack coming at all, because… well…

“Y…you have achieved bankai?” The shinigami substitute managed to get out, their zanpakutous frozen in place. The superior smile on her lips widened: “Surprised?”

His eyes travelled down and up again examining her new form. A somewhat inappropriate thought crossed his mind. He tried to shake it off: “Well… uhm…” If he wasn’t in the middle of a fight he would’ve scratched the back of his head in an awkward situation like that.

“I thought you were a lot faster than this.” Her voice brought him back to reality.

“Huh?”

“Your bankai.” She clarified for him. Something in her eyes left no doubt that she was seriously challenging him and something inside him couldn’t resist that.

He gave her a provoking look: “I’m just getting started.” Ichigo pushed her away with his sword.

“Finally.” Her smile didn’t fade.

The battlefield’s atmosphere changed, black and white flashes being the only thing that could still be seen. They were not really fighting against each other but rather fighting alongside, equally, synching their steps, their moves as if they were dancing. They were paying attention to each other but at the same time pushing each other to their limits. It would have probably continued like that a lot longer if Ichigo didn’t skip a step of their choreography for – payback time you could say.

Rukia found zangetsu only inches away from her throat, Ichigo’s body pressed against hers from behind.

“I got you.” His breath was touching her cheek.

Sode no Shirayuki was uselessly dangling in her right hand. She could have probably stabbed his foot, but… Rukia didn’t want to admit defeat, not yet, not now and certainly not in this position. That… was definitely too close and too… She paused – that could work.

Ichigo was damn sure she wouldn’t be able to escape him that easily. I thought you were a lot faster, huh? Of course he was he’d made that more than clear now. His pride would crumble only moments later.

She turned her head to him: “Don’t be so sure.”

Before he could realize what she was up to a sharp pain shot through his left leg causing him to drop his sword. It felt as if it had been frozen… Oh, that’s what she had done. He sighed trying to keep his balance but the leg gave away.

Rukia was about to declare her victory when Ichigo grabbed her wrist in the last possible moment pulling her down with him. If she didn’t let go of her sword she would have probably pierced his chest with it – again. Without it, it was only her unarmed-self landing on top of him. She propped herself up, one hand on the ground the other on his chest, furiously glaring at Ichigo: “What are you doing?!”

“What are you doing?! You just froze my leg!”

Wouldn’t it have been for their newly found argument she would’ve noticed a lot sooner that the position they were in now was a lot more indecent than the one before.

Instead of counter arguing Rukia looked to the side mumbling her retort rather to herself: “You didn’t leave me with another option…” Her eyes wandered around as if she was searching for the next thing to say, her right hand subconsciously travelling over his chest.

She wanted to put the blame on him alone for this but had to admit that it was at least halfway her fault as well. Then again if he didn’t have to prove his abilities then… her eyes caught her hand realizing the feeling of her skin on his.

Did Ichigo always have a muscular body like this?

Her eyes were still fixed on his chest questioningly tilting her head.

“No, actually that was a lot of training.”

Rukia nodded absentmindedly before it hit her in the face: “Wait! What?!” Her eyes shot up to him: “You heard that?!” She sounded a little hysteric, understandably so. Rukia watched him in shock a few seconds then rolled herself on her back next to him. That didn’t just happen. He was just making fun of her again and didn’t have the slightest clue what she’d… Wait, did she say that out loud? She was ruffling her hair trying to calm down her breath. Her heart was racing. Seriously, if this was a joke it wasn’t funny…

“I didn’t know you payed attention to this kind of things.”

She would’ve liked to kill him for this stupid grin his voice gave away. Rukia exhaled deeply, biting her lip in order to keep her anger contained: “Well, I didn’t. That’s the reason I didn’t notice until now.”

Ichigo folded his arms behind his head she could see it from the corner of her eye. He was taking this so casually. “I didn’t know you saw me like that.” His idiot smile was still there, as if he had just learned that his high school crush liked him back.

“Like what?” Her voice was indifferent, even a little annoyed. She wanted to get this conversation over with.

He turned to the side to face her. She didn’t do the same.

“Like a man.”

Now she did. She rested her head on her hand and looked at him with a sarcastic expression: “Uhm, as far as I remember you are one, right? Unless you are actually a woman and are just really good in disguising as a man and making everyone believe you were one.”

Ichigo repressed a laugh: “I take that as a yes.”

Rukia rolled back onto her back: “Do what you want.”

A moment of silence followed.

Then she suddenly heard his voice in her head:

Your bankai looks really good on you. It’s beautiful.

Rukia turned only her head, skeptical if she had really heard him say that.

It suits you.

His lips had not moved at all.

It’s even… a little sexy.

Her eyes widened when she instantly jumped to her feet trying to get a few steps away: “Okay, that’s enough! I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but this is definitely going too far.”

He’d never seen her so close to panicking before.

We’re in the middle of war. We cannot. This is not about us. We have to…

“Rukia.” He grabbed her shoulder turning her around to him: “Don’t you see what just happened?”

She was frozen in her spot just like their surroundings had because of her bankai.

“It worked.” He declared in triumph when she didn’t react, another rare smile on his face.

She blinked at him a few times until it finally sank in.

“We did it.” Rukia murmured. He was right she did hear his thoughts – word for word. “We really did it.” She repeated, this time fully aware what this meant. They would be able to defeat him, to win, to end the war.

A few moments of silence followed. None of them really knew what to say or what to think. There wouldn’t be any way to hide from now on, would it?

Ichigo cleared his throat breaking the awkward moment between them: “Well, uhm… So…” He looked right then left, not sure how to tell her. “You know… now that… we are able to hear each other’s thoughts…” This time he did scratch the back of his head. “Well now that you will find out anyway... I can just tell you myself… I guess.” A deep exhale followed before he looked back into her eyes: “I really like you. Not as a friend, not as my partner in battle, not as the person who saved my life, but…”

“I know.”

A frown appeared on his face and he looked a little confused. Rukia just smiled one of her soothing smiles: “I mean it’s not like we had no idea about our feelings for each other until now.”

His frown deepened. “Weren’t you the one close to panic just a second ago because I hinted something like that? And now you are acting like this is absolutely normal?”

She rolled her eyes, a little sigh followed: “Well, now that you’ve actually said it… there’s no reason to anymore. When you’re set to do something nothing and no one can stop you, that’s how it’s always been. So… as you said – we’ll know anyway.”

I’d like to kiss you.

What’s holding you back?

I don’t know, isn’t this… What if you’re right and this is going too fast?

We’re at war, yes. Maybe it’s not the best timing.

Thought so.

But, maybe it’ll help us. Because there’s nothing left unsaid between us.

So you think we will win?

What do you think?

Well I can do anything, as long as you are right next to me. So, yeah we will.

We will.

We will win.

 And then he kissed her. And he would wonder why they didn’t do this earlier. And she would ‘say’ that he just didn’t ask.

They would fight the finally battle together. They would win. They would survive. They would save everyone just like the zero squad and Urahara had hoped. But most importantly in the end they would be happy. And Juhabach would never return.

 Because it was their story – a story where life and death would no longer be apart.

[akaluan]

for the ask meme, howsabout 6, 17, rukihime?

(6: Bookshop AU, 17: War AU, Rukia/Orihime)

The first time Rukia stumbles into the place, she’s exhausted and cold, bloodied and bruised, wanting only a place to hide, a place to curl up to lick her wounds—

“Welcome to Priceless Tales, how can I… oh!” a startled voice greets her — and isn’t that odd? She’d thought the city abandoned to the Hollows, so… so why is a civilian still here? — followed by the sound of bare feet on wood, and—

Rukia drags her gaze up, gathering her strength to chide the woman for remaining behind, and freezes.

There’s something… odd about the woman approaching her, something… something on the edge of her senses, like a storm just over the horizon. She smells like rain, smells like green growing things, and Rukia takes a deep, ragged breath just to smell her, to smell something other than ash-char-decay for the first time in months.

“Come on, come on, you’re safe here. Let’s get you seated and see to your wounds, okay?” the woman asks with a bright smile, her sunset orange hair nearly glowing in the dim half-light of the store. She takes Rukia’s arm and tugs her deeper into the… into the bookstore of all places, towards an old, squat chair with wooden feet and a heavily stuffed seat.

It looks decadent, it looks ancient, and Rukia… Rukia is covered in mud-blood-ash, she can’t— she can’t—

The woman laughs, bright-cheerful-kind, and presses her into the chair anyway. “Don’t worry! You wouldn’t be the first to bleed all over my store, and you probably won’t be the last,” she says cheerfully, kneeling in front of Rukia and looking up at her through her lashes. “Everything will be okay, you’ll see.”

Rukia huffs at the empty reassurance but doesn’t bother fighting. She doesn’t have the strength to do so, not now, maybe never again.

Or… maybe that’s the blood-loss speaking.

Rukia sways. Struggles to stay awake.

Feels her body slump as darkness swims across her vision.

Knows nothing more.

***

When Rukia wakes, she’s in a burnt out building, sitting in a strangely untouched chair. There’s blood — her blood — staining the old fabric, but… she’s not wounded.

She’s not wounded.

No matter that she remembers being wounded, remembers pain-agony-weakness, her clothing is whole and her skin unmarred. It’s as if she fell asleep and dreamt it all— the attack, her wounds, finding an intact store, the shopkeeper…

But she doesn’t remember walking into this building. Doesn’t remember sitting down anywhere but the chair in the strange store…

And the blood. Still warm. Still tacky. Probably hers but…

She’s not wounded.

Rukia releases a long, shuddering breath and carefully rises, testing her body’s reactions to movement and…

She feels fine.

(What in the world…?)

Rukia swallows. Glances around the burnt out building.

Hurries out before she can question it any further.

(She has a war to fight.)

***

She tries not to think about the bookshop, about the shopkeeper, as she goes about her business; war is dangerous enough without being distracted by mysteries, and she’s constantly being directed around the front lines as her power is needed.

(Sometimes she wishes Sode no Shirayuki wasn’t ice based but…)

(She’s one of the few who can stop the raging fires started by the Hollows.)

(It’s tiring but… it’s needed.)

(She can’t refuse.)

She doesn’t get much downtime because of it, but even she gets it sometimes; like right now, as she wanders aimlessly through a mostly-intact city, uncertain where she wants to go, uncertain if she really wants to go anywhere, talk to anyone—

A familiar-unfamiliar door catches her attention, garishly bright and cheerfully inviting, despite being tucked away in a little nook formed by two other buildings. She wavers, hesitating over whether to investigate or continue on, before deciding what the hell and marching towards the door.

There’s a dark, narrow staircase behind the door, disappearing upwards with no signs of ending, and the first step creaks under Rukia’s foot as she steps on it. Still, she forges upwards, one hand on Sode’s hilt and the other on the wall, until a door suddenly looms out of the darkness in front of her.

She opens it.

Steps through.

“Welcome to Priceless Tales, how can I help you?” a familiar voice happily greets her. “Oh, you’re back! Hello there!”

Rukia starts and looks over at the counter to her side, eyes widening at the sight of the woman from her… dream? Memory? A quick glance around confirms the rest of it; she’s standing in an oddly vast bookshop, shelves vanishing into shadows just like the stairs did, with a small seating area not far from the entrance. Even the chairs are familiar, the same squat, over-stuffed style that she remembers from before, but…

The city where she remembers running across this woman and her store is over a thousand kilometers away.

This can’t be the same place.

(Can it?)

Not to mention the fact that she woke up in a burnt out ruin instead of a store.

(So how in the world…?!)

The woman laughs brightly and comes out from around the counter, everything about her achingly familiar: her brilliant sunset orange hair, the scent of plants-rain-wind lingering around her, the sensation of a storm just over the horizon…

“I’m glad to see you well, this time!” the woman says with a warm-kind-sharp smile, even as she ushers Rukia towards the small seating area. “You had me worried when you passed out like that.”

“I… yes. Thank you for taking care of me,” Rukia manages as she gingerly settles into one of the chairs. It’s just as overstuffed and decadent as it looks, and she feels herself melting back into it without hesitation. Just the chance to sit and relax is a welcome relief, and the dim light of the store is soothing the longer she sits in it; it feels safe, feels protective, and after so long at war, Rukia will take whatever safety and rest that she can find, no matter how artificial it is.

“Don’t mention it,” the woman tells her, and this time her smile has teeth.

Rukia laughs awkwardly and clasps her hands over her knee, telling herself that she shouldn’t find a civilian shopkeeper so fascinating, but…

Something about the woman calls out to her, calls out to Sode no Shirayuki, and she can’t help but wonder…

“Alright then,” Rukia agrees after a moment, then glances at the shelves around them. “So… can you tell me about this store?”

It’s the right question to ask; the woman practically lights up as she leans forward, excitement-pleasure-joy radiating from her as she says, “Of course, I’d love to tell you about it!”

Rukia settles in to listen to whatever the woman wants to tell her.

(Such clear joy is a rare commodity.)

(For that alone, she’ll listen to anything the woman had to say.)

(This is why she fights, to protect people like this.)

(Sometimes… sometimes she just needs a reminder.)

***

The sun is setting by the time Rukia leaves, and she stares blankly at the sky for a long, long moment, unnerved by having lost so much time without being aware of it. The bookshop hadn’t had any windows that she could see, but… but surely… surely she hadn’t spent that much time in there?

(Had she?)

She pulls out her pocket watch and flips the battered cover open, tipping the face towards the fading light, and—

Swallows.

Stares.

Slides her gaze from the watch telling her it’s only four in the afternoon to the brilliant orange sky, the same shade as the woman’s hair, telling her it’s nearly eight in the evening.

Slowly, warily, already certain of what she’s going to find, Rukia turns around to the door she just walked out of—

There’s no door.

There’s no sign that a door ever existed there, either. The two buildings abut cleanly, with no little nook for a door and a stairwell leading up. It’s like waking in a burnt-out building all over again, except this time…

This time Rukia went in there freely and willingly.

(That she walked out at all is… is…)

(No, no don’t think about it.)

(The woman was kind-pleasant-nice.)

(A few missing hours is a small price to pay for getting to relax.)

(She’ll just… have to be more careful from now on.)

Rukia glances one last time at the spot where the door was, then turns back around and stalks off.

She has work to do, and an encounter with the fair folk is no excuse to avoid it.

(She’ll just… not mention this to anyone.)

(It’s no one’s business but hers, anyway.)

(She’ll be fine.)

(She will.)

***

Months go by, months in which the war worsens and Rukia finds herself thrown from mission to mission, front to front, until she’s running on pride-spite-fury and nothing else. Her friends are being worn down, are losing hope, losing strength, and… and she can’t… she can’t blame them.

Not when half the enemies they’ve been fighting are their own comrades resurrected and turned against them. Not when the other half are broken-twisted-empty civilians, their souls bound in barbed chains and driven mad by the agony.

(She’ll never forgive Aizen for this, for any of this.)

(If she had any hope of beating him—)

(But she doesn’t, she can’t, not when her own superiors can’t do a thing against him.)

Rukia takes a shaky breath and braces herself, hefting Sode no Shirayuki with trembling arms and staring down the monstrous Espada just down the street.

(She wasn’t supposed to be fighting an Espada; there wasn’t supposed to be one here…!)

(Had their intelligence failed, or… or is there… is there a traitor amongst them even now?)

The Espada grins at her, all sharp teeth and vicious greed, and spins an achingly familiar trident, it’s form flickering into… into—

Rukia seethes at the desecration, at the deceit, and launches herself at the monster wearing Shiba Kaien’s form, attacking once, twice, again-again-again until her trembling hands go numb and the monster’s mocking words start to dig deep-deep-deep into her mind.

It’s too powerful for her.

(She’s too worn down, her strength a sliver of what it should be.)

(She never had a chance.)

It laughs and bats her aside, a rush of water leaping from the trident and driving her back, driving her against — through! — a wall.

She tumbles down a flight of dimly lit stairs. Crashes through another door. Sprawls damp-wounded-worn across the wooden floor and stares blankly up at the darkness that devours the ceiling.

There are bookshelves looming over her.

(How… expected…)

“Welcome to— oh, hmm. You’re Hime’s Favored,” a man’s voice says, followed by the sound of bare feet on wood as he moves towards her.

Rukia wearily glances over, blinking at the sight of a tall, slender man with the same brilliant, sunset orange hair as the woman from before. And maybe it’s because she was just facing a creature pretending to be Shiba Kaien, but… he looks familiar, looks so much like her beloved mentor that she… she can’t bear it.

She closes her eyes and tips her head away.

The man kneels at her side. Carefully tugs her into a more comfortable position. Smooths her dripping hair out of her face. “I’ve let Hime know,” he tells her soothingly. “You just rest right here. Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll deal with it.”

Rukia swallows. Bites back the tears that want to fall. Steadfastly ignores that one of the fair folk is going out to deal with her problem.

He’s gone a moment later, not even the sound of footsteps giving him away, and Rukia sighs and reaches up to scrub at her eyes with one trembling hand.

(What has she gotten herself into?)

Before she can start to despair, there’s a sharp intake of breath from nearby, followed by the patter of bare feet on wood yet again. Another person kneels at her side, delicate hand smoothing across her face, as they say, “It’ll be alright. Just relax.”

Rukia’s breath hitches at the familiar voice and she cracks her eyes open, staring up at the woman from her previous visits — Hime, the man had called her? — and drinking in the sight of the woman’s care-concern-determination. It might be — probably is — faked, but… she doesn’t have the strength to care anymore.

Even the pretense is better than nothing, at this point.

Light shimmers around her, the same brilliant orange as the woman’s hair, and Rukia sighs in relief as her pain begins to fade.

“You’re worse than last time,” Hime murmurs, mouth curving down into a frown as she does.

Rukia huffs. “The war is getting worse,” she tells Hime without hesitation, then lets her eyes slide closed in exhaustion. “We’re… not going to win,” she admits softly, giving voice to the fear that’s been growing in her soul the past few months. “We’re stretched thin as it is, and I’m… I’m so tired…” She shouldn’t be admitting this to one of the fair folk, shouldn’t be giving Hime such an opening, but…

She can’t help it.

Not anymore.

Hime hums and leans forward, leans over Rukia until there’s only inches between them. “What would you give to see the war ended?” she asks, quiet-intense-tempting.

“Anything,” Rukia breathes, knowing exactly the trap she’s walking into and unable to find the strength to care.

“Give me your name.”

“Kuchiki Rukia.”

Hime makes a happy noise and leans closer, her lips soft-warm-gentle as she presses a kiss to Rukia’s own. “Kuchiki Rukia,” she whispers against Rukia’s lips, the sound rippling down Rukia’s spine like a promise, like an oath. “Consider your request fulfilled.” Hime straightens up, one hand brushing across Rukia’s forehead once again, and then she orders, “Rest now. Rest and recover. You’re safe.”

Rukia struggles against the command for a moment, two, before the creeping relief-exhaustion-hope overtakes her at last.

She falls asleep.

She doesn’t dream.

(And when she wakes, Aizen is dead and the Hollows are back where they belong.)

(And when she wakes, she steps from the bookshop with a new wife on one side and a new brother on the other.)

(The Kuchiki Clan is in for the shock of their lives but…)

(She regrets nothing.)

(And she never will.)

[lo-55]

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 3

The Rift

 Ichigo wonders, more often than not, why it is that even though he can see ghosts, he never sees the ones he wants to. His mother, and now his friends from Chaldea. He can’t see them anymore. The singularities are gone, and humanity has returned to the way it always was. But it’s missing so many people, from his own point of view. Olga Marie isn’t bound to him anymore. She’s moved on.  And the rest…

 Ichigo sits in front of his mother's grave with his dad at his side. Karin and Yuzu have gone for drinks, leaving them alone for the time being. Rukia, and Kon too, sit on a hill, watching over them and waiting for trouble. He doesn’t want to admit it. He’s carried the guilt in his heart for so long, but now… it’s possible that Rukia is right. That the reason his mother is dead is because…

   “Hey, old man,” Ichigo looks towards his dad, who’s been acting weird since he’s come back. More than once he’s caught him just staring. Like he’s trying to figure out what changed his kid so much. As if they were ever that close in the first place. Ichigo let’s him. There’s no way for him to understand what’s changed Ichigo into the person he is now. It’s not something that can be easily explained, and in any case the Mage's Association was pretty clear. No one is supposed to know that magic exists. Including his own family. Anyone who finds out must be killed.

 “Yeah?” Isshin looks his way, away from the grave that reads his mother's name.

 “About mom. Could she ever see ghosts, do you know?” he looked right at him. Testing Isshin, watching his eyes. He’d never noticed before…

 That his dad was hiding behind a dozen walls. And they all started to come up when Ichigo asked his question. Ichigo has spent years with master assassins and traitorous knights. He can see clearly now, for the first time ever. His dad isn’t such a colossal goof off after all.

 “Why are you asking this all of a sudden?” he asks and it      hurts    . It hurts more than Ichigo thought, to know that he was keeping this secret for so long. To know that he could have told him, that both of them could have told him when he was young and he couldn't tell who was alive and who was dead, that he wasn’t alone in it. Karin had always had him, and they’d learned together after their mom had died, who was real and who was not.

 Why? Why had they hid these things from him? And could he trust their dad to tell them the truth now?

 “... No reason. I was just thinking about her.”

 No, he decides, looking back at the headstone. He can’t trust his old man to tell him the truth. So, he’ll have to learn it some other way.

 *

 Sometimes, Isshin looks as his son and he sees a complete stranger.

 He’s still brash and angry, and he would die for Yuzu and Karin, might have while Isshin wasn’t looking, but he’s not himself. He isn’t the same son that had climbed onto a plane for what should have been a simple job months ago. He’d only been gone for a week. How could he have changed so much?

 He was taller, for one thing, and yeah teenagers have growth spurts but they don’t grow three inches in seven days. Their hair doesn’t grow out in a week either, and they don’t get so strong or so self assured that fast.

 More than that, his son has this look in his eyes…

 A terrible age, even though he’s only fifteen. He looks at them like he’s afraid they’ll disappear. He looks like he’s always waiting for something. For something to go wrong, for the other shoe to drop.

 Even before Rukia had shown up and given her powers over to him, and then started living in his son’s closet of all places, he’d been the same. On edge. And the way he’d greeted them…

 Ichigo did a lot of things when Isshin attacked him. Hugging him wasn’t one of them.

 On top of all that, he’d gone to see Kisuke, to ask what was going on in the spirit world, where he could no longer see, and it turns out that Kisuke agrees. There’s something strange about Ichigo. He’s stronger than he should be, and stronger than he ever was, even without Rukia. And he doesn’t know what exactly happened between Kisuke and Ichigo, but it’s enough that now the old captain is interested in him.

 It’s not nearly as comforting as Isshin wishes it was. When Kisuke got involved, things rarely went well. No matter how good his intentions were.

 Then he asked about Masaki, and Isshin had faltered.

 It was time, it was the perfect time for him to tell him the truth. To sit him down and explain what had happened all those years ago, and tell him about the kind of heritage he had, and what it might mean. He’s wondered, whose power did he get? Isshin, or Masaki. Shinigami, or Quincy? Or both? Or hollow? It’s hard to tell.

 But he chickened out. The words got stuck and the world closed off and Ichigo turned away from him. The moment was lost, and now Isshin doesn’t know what to do. It’s so much easier raising daughters than sons.

 * *

 By the time his ridiculous duel with Uryu is over, Ichigo is willing to bet money that his mother was a Quincy.

 Ichigo ends up sitting on a bench, breathing fast but he’s not so exhausted nor so beat up as Ishida, who sits patiently while Ichigo carefully stitches up his arm. It’s easy enough to pass this particular skill off as one he learned from his father and not knee deep in a war, trying to help Roman with the dozens of injured Chaldea staff.

 “Isn’t your dad a doctor? Wouldn’t it be better to have him do than let me?” Ichigo finds himself asking They’re lucky Uryu had a needle and thread on his person, even if they did have to bend the needle in an awkward, sloppy approximation of the ones used for real stitches.

 It’ll do for now.

 “It’s best if my father doesn’t know about this,” he says simply.

 “Oh yeah?” Ichigo grins at him. “I take it that means he doesn’t want you doing this kind of stuff then.”

 “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Uryu sniffed at him stubbornly. Ichigo glowers at him, and pulls the next stitch harder until Uryu yelps. “Hey! Watch it!”

 “Of      course    it’s my business. This whole stunt that you pulled was insanely dangerous.”

 “Are you admitting that you’re weaker than I am,” Uryu lifts his chin, his nose in the air, and Ichigo has to stop himself from karate chopping him in his throat.

 “It doesn’t matter if I’m weaker or not! What matters is that we’re not the only people in town that you could have gotten killed with this stunt! Didn’t you notice? There’s hollows that disappeared that neither one of us took out.”

 He snaps the thread and grabs Uryu by the front of his shirt, watching his blue eyes go wide and realization dawn for what is apparently the first time. “That means other people are fighting. Other people might be dying. My sister has high spirit levels too you know?! When you pull shit like this you’re putting the lives of everyone around you into the same danger, without even telling them about it! How can someone with top grades be so damn stupid?!”

 Ichigo forces himself to lean back, anger still bubbling under his skin. All this trouble because Uryu hates shinigami, and Ichigo isn’t even a real one.

 “      Listen    ,” he leans in , forcing Uryu to bend backwards over the back of the bench, “I’ll fight you one on one any time you want. But this hollow fighting isn’t a game. And if you ever put other people in danger unnecessarily again, I’ll beat your goddamn face in.”

 “Y-you!” Uryu pushes against his chest but Ichigo is immobile, stone and still.

 “Do you understand, Uryu Ishida?”

 “I. Yes,” he says at last, looking down and away. Only then does Ichigo let him go, leaning back and letting out a grunt when it pulls at his shoulders. He’d over strained himself, just a little bit.

 “Hey, Kon!” Ichigo waves his body snatcher over to the pair. “Gimme my body back already, huh?”

 “Ah, you’re no fun,” Kon whines, but he sits on the bench and lets Ichigo slide back in without a fuss. Ichigo pulls Uryu up off of the bench and gives him a shove.

 “C’mon. I’ll walk you home.”

 “I don’t need you to do that!”

 “Well I’m doing it anyways. You’re injured, what if there’s still a few more hollows lingering around, huh? Just shut up and start walking.”

 Uryu scowls, but starts walking forwards anyhow, with Ichigo in his shadow. During his whole trauma speech and background story Ichigo’s mind had been turning over and over. His dad was a quincy too, even if he didn’t want to admit it, and if Uryu was to be believed, they were the last of them.

 Goat-face isn’t going to answer his questions, so Ichigo follows Uryu home, to a house that far too big for just two men alone. He feels old, walking into it. It’s fanciful, but he’s seen the theatres of Rome and the courts of King Arthur.

 Ichigo will never be a sensor, but he’s gotten used to trusting the sense inside him that says when someone else is around, and even though it took him a while he’s good enough to be able to follow it if he has to. He didn’t know about the spirit ribbons. Ichigo is used to being clueless, but he’s not stupid. He files the information away for later, and quietly memorizes that feeling of Uryu. It’s more like a taste, clean and sharp, and vaguely like citrus.  

 His father is much the same. And he is utterly unimpressed by Ichigo arriving on his doorstep with his son in tow.

 His eyes are colder than ice, not exactly something Ichigo would want in any doctor he has.

 “Hey, old man,” Ichigo raised a hand and, with his usual level of tact, asked ever-so-discreetly, “Did you know my mom?”

 * * *

 “Do you know where you are?”

 The scent of roses and daffodils and the feeling of soft worn wool brushing against his cheek. A ribbon made of magic brushing his nose.

 Ichigo opens his eyes and looks into a pale blue sky, wisps of cotton candy clouds stretching across from one horizon to the next.

 “I am in a dream,” he says dutifully.

 “Very good Dolores.”

 Ichigo punches him in the stomach, sending the mage doubled over in a fit of coughing and laughing together. A smile that’s far too mischevious to be soft is aimed at him.

 “You have an amazon prime subscription out here?” Ichigo asked, sitting up slowly. The tower still floats, through the sky at the end of the world.

 “Well yes. I do run a blog, you know?” though it’s said with a straight face he can see a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, where even eternal youth hasn’t been able to curb laugh lines. He’s good humor, and a good company.

 “Seriously?!”

 That gets a laugh out of the mage of all mages. He lays back in the flowers that climb and bloom, thriving in his very presence. He is life and light and mischief, a watcher and a strange sort of guardian.

 “Well yes. I can’t spend all of my time merely      watching     people. The internet made things much more fun! Humans are such innovative creatures, even without magic to help them along.”

 Ichigo nodded along with him. “Does that mean that you can email me instead of hijacking my beauty sleep?”

 “Oh, you mean you don’t enjoy my company, oh great Master of Humanity?”

 Ichigo scowls at him, but there’s a smile trying to pull at his mouth. He struggles to squash it, and he can tell from the glint in his companions eyes that he fails.

 “Stop calling me that,” he says for a millionth time.

 A firm hand pushes him back into the flowers, under the warmth of the sun in the soft crush of fragrant petals. There’s no perfume that could ever compare. This is a strange place, a beautiful cage, and Ichigo doesn’t fully understand how he can be here and home at the same time. Not that that’s new. He’s been in two places at once more times than he cares to count, and he still only vaguely understands how it’s possible.

 “I understand that your life is interesting once more.” The mage stretches out beside him, taller than he and cloaked elegantly in his same old robes. He’s showy and modest at once and it hurts Ichigo’s eyes to look at him for long.

 Ichigo groans. “If you mean my entire existence is one giant clusterfuck then yeah. It’s real ‘interesting’ again. But I’m not time travelling again yet so…”

 “Poor little master. Your life is so very hard…”

 “I’ll hit you,” Ichigo threatened. “Master mage, but a shit fighter. I can take you.”

 The laugh that he is granted is bells on the wind.

 “True, true. But I believe that things will get worse before they get better. Perhaps you should begin your mage craft training once more.”

 “You know I always sucked at that. I could only use real magic if I had a mystic code. Every other time, it exploded in my face. I’m a secondrate mage, that’s how it’s always been,” he says it all simply.

 “That is true… Isn’t it funny how that works out? A boy who cannot cast a single spell without assistance ends up defeating the most powerful mage in history. You really are a remarkable human, Ichigo.”

 “And you’re trying to get me to do something for you, aren’t you?”

 “Aha! You do know me! Yes, I need you to mail something very important to me…”

 “You get mail here?!”  

 * * * *

 It’s the tenth time he’s been thrown into the dirt today.

 A normal person would have given up and packed it in. A normal person would have humbly accepted that the strength of these titans was beyond their abilities to keep up with.

 Instead, Ichigo stands again.

 He picks up his borrowed practice sword, dulled so no one can get hurt, and faces his opponent once more.

 Mash, Cu, and Medusa, his constant companions, watch him narrow his eyes and plant his feet again.

 “One more time, Nero!”

 “He’s stubborn, if nothing else,” Medusa mused, not quite out of his earshot. Cu nods his agreement, his eyes never wavering.

 “Tha’ll help him,” he said simply. Ichigo didn’t know why but his accent seemed to change just a little each time he opened his mouth. Sometimes he was barely understandable. Sometimes it is perfect english. Or whatever language the magic was auto-translating it to. Japanese for Ichigo, english for Mash, and probably latin for Nero and the surrounding soldiers.

 “ ‘He’ can still hear you!” He glared halfheartedly at the pair of Servants, who looked perfectly innocent. The longer he was around them, the more familiar he was with the small changes in disposition and expression, their likes and dislikes. And, to his eternal surprise, the      feeling    of them.

 Cu Cullain felt like trees. Like thick moss on a stone, and early morning mist rolling through thick, ageless trees. His presence was as familiar as an old, trusted hound. They’d only been together for a few months, but his spellwork and the steady draw of his mana felt as natural as breathing to him.

 Medusa was the deep ocean, power beneath every surface but beautiful to behold. A crash of waves against the stony shore, her every touch fleeting and feather light while her chains lashed with horror and the chthonic strength born in the age of gods. She was the smooth brush of scales against his wrist, the flash of teeth behind a sweet smile, and gold eyes in the darkness that Ichigo alone did not flinch from.

 Theirs was a tenuous relationship. She kept looking for him to stab her back, to cut her head and use it as his weapon. Ichigo was still half expecting to wake up as a statue one day. They only had the barest trust between them but…

 She hasn’t let him down yet, and Ichigo endeavours to repay that much if he can.

 He raises his sword and barely blocks a vicious strike from Nero. She was shorter than him by far, but he had no chance matching her for raw strength. Or speed. Or her damn near perfect swordplay.

 “Focus on the performance at hand,” she orders, her mouth curved in a strange smile. Ichigo didn’t totally understand her. They’d been travelling with her for over a month now, on the way to reach what would one day be london.

 “Right,” Ichigo lunges for her, his strikes quick and hard. He’s not worried about hurting her since he can’t even      hit    her.

 It’s graceful, elegant, and nearly effortless for her to knock him flat on his ass again, smacking the flat of her blade against his chest so hard he sees spots. He’s left sucking desperately. His nails bite into the dirt and his grip on his sword tightens until the leather wrapped around the hilt creaks.

 “That’s enough for today, I think,” Nero decides. Ichigo wants to argue, but he doesn’t have any breath for it. So he groans like a dying whale and lays in the dirt, his hands shaking, his body refusing to move at all.

 Nero lowers herself to the ground, on her knees beside him and how strange is that? A goddamn emperor kneeling with him in the dirt. A demi-goddess, and a druid, and a demi-servant. And Ichigo, just human. But Nero is human too. She’s as alive as he is and she is wiping the fucking floor with him.

 “You’re a - fuck,” he wheezes and finally gets his elbows under him so he can sit up.

 “Now that’s very rude to say, considering that I’ve been training you out of the goodness of my own heart,” Nero sniffs at him, tilting her chin to the sky.

 Why did Ichigo always get stuck with these kinds of bewildering people? Everyone he knew was so weird…

 “Yeah, I guess. Thanks, Nero.” A perfectionist and slave driver, but Ichigo was getting better every day. By the time they reached their destination, maybe he’d even be able to land a single blow per bout. Ichigo had never expected to get along with a roman emperor of all people, but even outside of fighting Ichigo has always been, if only mildly, interested in the arts, and Nero only stokes those embers.

 Nero smiles beatifically at him. “You have the makings of a fine performer. Even without an Imperial Privilege. I enjoy teaching you.”

 Her smile is interrupted by a pinch of her brows and purse of her lips.

 Ah, another headache.

 It’s very strange, trying to reconcile the young woman in front of Ichigo with the tyrant from history. She’s put her people ahead of her at every turn, and helped Ichigo and his friends. She’s under no obligation to teach Ichigo swordplay but she does, even after long days on the march.

 At the same time, there’s a reason Boudica is only her reluctant ally. Nero cared for her people but she was, in another word, a merciless bitch when she put her mind to it. But she was on their side, for now, and Ichigo is learning not to look gift horses in the mouth. So he gets up and goes to her side, and shows her how to press her fingers into pressure points on the back of her neck, and hold it for a few seconds until the headache goes away.

 He’s made an archduke for that one.

 * * * * *

 A rift forms in the Kurosaki household.

 It’s always been there, a cut stitches tenuously together by blood and loyalty, and reinforced by love, but now it’s split.

 A gaping chasm, and Ichigo doesn’t know what to do with it.

 It feels like it’s not something he can bridge. Like this is one obstacle that even he cannot conquer. Master of Chaldea, Final Beacon for Humanity. Commander of Heroes, Beloved, the First Guardian.

 He is a hundred things but at the end of the day he is still.

 A teenager.

 Fifteen and eighteen and four thousand at once.

 His dad had lied to him. If not directly, then by omission. For years, for so very long he’d let Ichigo hold the responsibility of Masaki’s life in his hands, had kept quiet when he grew frightened and dark and closed off from the living, so preoccupied was he with the dead.

 Never once did he offer reason. Never once did he show his care or cradle his son, or tell him that the monsters were real and it      wasn’t his fault    .

 Not once, in six, seven, eight, nine years did he tell Ichigo that he was not alone. That he and Karin were merely Masaki’s children. That they were born of quincy blood, even if that never put a bow in their hands.

     Half the blood means half the power,”     That was what Ryuuken had said. And how sad is it that Ichigo had had to hunt down a veritable stranger, once who’s son had spent the entire day bickering and competing and hating his guts, to get answers from?

 “      Does my old man know all of this?”    Ichigo had asked.

 Ryuuken was honest, even if he didn’t want to get into the tangled web of family drama.      “Yes,”    He’d said, “      But it’s more complicated than that. Isshin has the entire story.”  

 And he wouldn’t tell Ichigo.

 He didn’t tell him on the bloody banks of the river, when a child wandered in desperate hope of finding a phantom of his mother.

 He did not tell a ten year old at the foot of a grave marker. He kept silent at eleven, at twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

 Fifteen. Under the watching grave of his mother Ichigo had asked. And Isshin had not told.

 The house is tense like it hasn’t been since Ichigo got back. It’s tense like a storm, cracking along the edges of the walls and windows. Tense like there’s no coming back from this and Ichigo cannot take the building static in his veins or the hissing of betrayal in his ears, like snakes.

 He misses Medusa, suddenly. She would take his pound of flesh for him and then some.

 Ichigo go knows, for certain, that if he stays in this house he’ll go mad. Yuzu and Karin, they know something is up. Ichigo’s pretty sure Karin saw the hollow, Grand Fisher, at the grave site. Dead now by his blade, but the vengeance tastes like ash on his tongue. His mother is still dead. His father is still a liar.

 His sisters still love them both.

 Ichigo loves them, too. More than anything in the world, he fought gods and demons for their sake. For them to be born for them to have a future.

 But he can’t spend all of his time at home, and Chad is starting to ask questions that Ichigo has a difficult time answering.

 Not ‘was that a demon ghost you just punched in the face’ hard. That answer is ease. ‘Yes’.

 But ‘is everything alright at home’ hard. Chad had asked the first time he saw Isshin launch himself at his son in a surprise attack and he’s about to ask it again, Ichigo can feel it in his bones.

 So he makes a phone call.

 The rest of the world will never know what they did.

 The world will not know about him or Mash or Roman or Olga Marie, or the countless others that built Chealdea and kept her running. They’ll never know how much they fought, how much they bled, how much they sacrificed for the sake of the future.

 It’s fine with him.

 But there are some who know. The Mage's Association, and the United Nations. And a select few people from the Clock Tower in London, where Ichigo has already been offered schooling and job. They know that he stopped the incineration of humanity.

 And they      owe    him.

 Three years of pay for working in Chaldeas, and even more for everything else he’d done.

 He finds a backpack while he waits for a familiar voice to answer.

 “Do you have any idea what time it is?” There's a shuffle of sheets and a groan in the background and Ichigo barely pays it any mind as he stuffs a hoodie into his bag and goes looking for his running shoes.

 “Not a clue,” he said blandly. “But listen, Waver. I need a favor.”

 * * * * * *

[darisu-chan]

whatever our souls are made of (his and mine are the same), pt. 15

Welcome back to yet another one-shot!

Hope you guys enjoy it!

You can also read it here.

See ya!

inkwell

Prompt: social media

Summary: Each photo they upload becomes a puzzle piece which tells a story. Their story.

Ichigo, Rukia realizes, is not a fan of social media.

 Not that she had known what that was beforehand.

 She hadn’t realized there were more uses for a cellphone besides calling, receiving texts, listening to music and maybe taking a few pictures.

 She had had a more pragmatic view of technology.

 And it is not until she overhears Inoue and Arizawa talking about the newest photograph the former had taken and posted to Instagram, that she takes an interest on all the other uses one can give to a phone.

 “Ichigo, what is Instagram?” She asks the following day.

 She had hardly been able to sleep as she thought about that mysterious Instagram thing.

 Ichigo blinks and puts away the manga he had been reading.

 It is obvious he hadn’t seen this question coming.

 “It is a cellphone app.” He vaguely explains.

 “I see.”

 (Spoiler alert: she hadn’t)

 “What is an app?”

 She asks again.

 Then he goes on a lengthy explanation about the many apps and their uses.

 Turns out, Instagram is just one of the many apps you can use.

 You can even watch movies on your phone!

 Who would’ve thought?

 And Rukia gets the gist of it.

 Well sorta.

 She just knows that you can use a phone for almost anything nowadays.

 But he hadn’t really answered what Instagram was, so she asks again.

 “It’s an app in which people post pictures, sometimes with messages, other times not.” Ichigo tells her.

 “So people use it to share their photos with other people?”

 That sounded simple enough.

 “That’s the idea. Though attractive people use it for attention.” He adds.

 “Is that why Inoue has an Instagram?” Rukia asks out loud.

 (That makes him crack up)

 “So, to sum up, it is essentially a virtual album?”

 “Yeah, I guess.”

 It then occurs to Rukia that if Ichigo knows so much about it, maybe he has one.

 So she questions him about it.

 As it turns out, Ichigo does have an Instagram account.

 But he rarely uses it.

 It’s private, to begin with.

 There are just a few people that Ichigo had accepted, including his sisters and his few high school friends.

 He also doesn’t follow a lot of people.

 Besides that, he has only posted two photos.

 The first one is a snap of the river bank as the sun sets.

 There’s no description below and it seems unasuming, but Rukia knows the significance of it once she looks at the date it was posted on.

 The second one is just a picture of two very thick books by English authors.

 Again, there is no description, but she guesses those are a few of his favorite books.

 Other than that, there’s not much on his Instagram.

 Keigo did tag him on a picture with their other friends at someone’s house about a year ago.

 And that’s pretty much it.

 Yet, despite Ichigo’s lack of enthusiasm, Rukia is intrigued.

 She uses his account to browse through Instagram and realizes that he’s right, many attractive people, from celebrities to ordinary teens, post pictures of themselves, some in very suggestive poses.

 Then, there are other people who just share many things.

 Their pets, the places they’ve visited, their significant others, their children and other family members, things they bought, their food, concerts, and so much more.

 Rukia likes that.

 It feels as if they were sharing an intimate glimpse into their lives.

 She feels like she wants to share that too.

 She expresses as much, and Ichigo ends up installing the app into her own human cellphone and tells her how to use it.

 First things first, she needs a handle name.

 Rukia decides that doesn’t want to use her own name.

 Ichigo had told her that she could use a pseudonym in social media.

 She likes the anonymity of it.

 So she chooses a very simple handle.

 It is @krchappy14 and instead of her name, she just writes her initials.

 K. R.

 She becomes just a random Instagram user.

 And her first post is a snap of a drawing she had made, of a single white bunny waving hello with the hashtags #new, #hello and #bunny.

 That is just the beginning.

 Before long, her Instagram is filled with pictures.

 Rukia takes photos of anything she likes and posts them on the app.

 ─ Of sunsets, scattered leaves, the river.

 A stray snail, the white bunny she saw at a pet store, a hummingbird.

 Rain drops on windows, clouds, rainbows.

 A picture of her boots as she stands over a puddle.

 The highest tree in Karakura Town. ─

 There is not a single description in any of them.

 But Rukia uses different emoji under them and hashtags relating to what they are and what she feels about them.

 Soon, she gains a small following.

 At first just Ichigo follows her, and then Yuzu and Karin.

 Ishida, Chad, Mizuiro and Keigo end up following her too.

 Then there are two accounts that seem too suspicious to be just random users.

 (@greenhats4laifu and @_real_black_cat)

 Yet there are other people ─ strangers ─ who follow her for the photographs she posts.

 They like their simplicity.

 How Rukia lets them speak for themselves.

 There are, of course, more intimate ones.

 Ones most people wouldn’t be able to guess their true meaning.

 ─ Two coffee mugs sitting side by side ─ one light blue with a white bunny on it, another black with red accents.

 Two videogame controllers.

 A horror manga next to a copy of Shakespeare’s selected works.

 Pictures of a rainy day with sad face emoji underneath.

 Board games on a table.

 A plate of curry.

 A festival.

 Fireworks.

 A rooftop overseeing the town.

 The silhouette of a young man reading. ─

 Her pictures are not only about things she likes.

 Each one tells a different story.

 And as time passes by, they multiply.

 Eventually Ichigo takes notice and asks her about it.

 “Why do you take so many pictures each time you visit?”

 “Because I don’t want to forget.”

 She simply admits.

 And suddenly she feels raw as Ichigo stares at her.

 “I… I never got to live as a human, so now that I get the chance, there are many things, many moments I just don’t want to ever forget.”

 For Rukia Instagram is more than just an app and photos.

 She uses it as her personal journal.

 But instead of words, it is filled with glimpses of life.

 Each photograph is a brief moment frozen in time that she wants to remember for the rest of her days.

 Everything she gets to experience, everything that she gets to be, is there.

 It is a testimony of her own existence.

 “I just figured that if there comes a time I can’t come here anymore, at least there’d be proof I was here, you know?”

 That I lived, she wants to say.

 Ichigo smiles softly at her.

 “I understand.”

 On her next visit, she is surprised to discover that Ichigo has been uploading more photos on his account.

 It’s not just a few.

 His account is still private, and the same people still follow him, but now there are more than just two lone pictures.

 ─ There’s a snap of his university.

 Pictures of Karin’s recent games.

 A photo of the Kurosakis all eating dinner together.

 A picture of Yuzu focused on her cooking.

 Birds flying through the window.

 A stack of new manga.

 Just a simple picture of his closet.

 A photo of the new CDs he bought.

 A snap of forget-me-nots. ─

 And Rukia soon realizes why he’s taking so many pictures.

 They are not for himself or for other people.

 They are for her.

 Each picture is about something she had missed while she was away.

 Events and anecdotes she gets to hear from her favorite people.

 And that now she gets to see.

 So she smiles at each them as she sees them.

 She treasures them deep in her heart.

 (Now she doesn’t have to miss anything)

 Eventually, their Instagram accounts get filled with photographs that you’d need to see together to get the full picture.

 Each photo becomes a puzzle piece which tells a story.

 Their story.

 ─ Movie tickets.

 Two pairs of ice skates.

 Starbucks orders.

 Pink dresses and leather jackets.

 Drawings and crayons.

 Books and college essays.

 A sunrise.

 Black bracelets.

 Silver rings.

 A field covered in flowers.

 Bunnies everywhere.

 A kitchen.

 Chocolate cake.

 Two pairs of legs covered in blankets.

 Sakura trees in full bloom.

 Dandelions. ─

 And one winter day, they post their best pictures.

 Rukia’s is a simple one.

 She hadn’t taken it, though.

 It had been Yuzu who had snapped it when they hadn’t been looking.

 It has a black and white filter.

 And in the picture, you can see the backs of a man and a woman wearing winter coats.

 They are surrounded by a snowy landscape.

 And the girl has her head on the guy’s shoulder as he holds her close.

 The caption is just a heart emoji.

 Ichigo, for his part, posts two pictures.

 His are more straightforward.

 The first is a snap of Rukia grinning as she throws snow in the air.

 In the second one, they are sitting next to each other.

 As Rukia smiles and blushes, Ichigo is seen pecking her cheek.

 The description simply reads,

 “I’m still not used to the cold, but since she loves snow so much, I gotta learn how to enjoy it too. It’s worth it, though. Just to see her smile.”

 Rukia gets a lot of comments saying she and her boyfriend look cute, even though you cannot see their faces.

 Ichigo, meanwhile, is bombarded by comments from his friends.

 He ignores them, though, as now he is more focused on the girl next to him.

 “Guess this means we’re now Instagram official, nee?”

 She jests as he rolls his eyes.

 “Rukia, please don’t ruin the moment.”

 “You know you love it.”

 “Damn right I do.”

[recurring-polynya]

Today’s AU suggestion comes from Tumblr user @missdramaqueensworld We had a bit of a back-n-forth, and I hope you don’t mind that I mushed a couple of your suggestions together into a Lighthearted Superheroes AU! Byakuya has always given me Big Bruce Wayne vibes, what with his extensive wealth and his flair for the overdramatic and his propensity for collecting orphans. I think I got the spirit of the thing (and, of course, the opening line!) I hope you like it!! (Note: I didn’t include the original prompt because it was very detailed and I didn’t want to give everything away, but please give credit to @missdramaqueensworld for all the good ideas and me for all the terrible superhero names)

Read on ao3 or ff.net

🦸    🌸    💥

“Hisana,” Byakuya called, as he contemplated the secret niche that was hidden behind the rear panel of his ancillary special occasion shoe closet. “Where is Senbonzakura?”

“Where’s what?” his beloved wife’s voice rang back.

Byakuya gritted his back teeth. “The mystical sword that has been passed down through twenty-eight generations of my family that allows me to fight crime as the mysterious hero Captain Sakura?”

Hisana leaned up against the doorframe of his closet. “Haven’t seen it. Where’s the non-mystical, yet very expensive tuxedo that allows you to escort me to the charity benefit that I’ve been planning for three months?”

“I am not joking, Hisana, I have a responsibility to the city!”

“That’s right, you do! You’re a charming and handsome philanthropist who is helping his beautiful wife raise piles of money for underprivileged children!”

Byakuya tried to rack his brain. Where could he have left the thing? “You know very well what I mean. The city is under attack by dark forces. Dark forces, Hisana!”

Hisana put her hands on her hips. “Don’t you have sidekicks for this?”

“They do not like being called sidekicks, they are allegedly adults now. Besides, you are the one who told me to stop bothering them so much. They have their own lives now, you said.” Which vehicle had he used last? The Sakura Bike? The Sakura Jet? He didn’t think it was the Sakura Jet-Ski, but honestly, all of last week was just blurring together.

“They can have their own lives on nights when I don’t have a charity benefit,” Hisana hissed.

Wait. He’d had that unfortunately team-up with the Great Desert Brothers (or were they calling themselves Phantom Thief NelDoPe again?) and he’d had to spend a great deal of time cleaning “Infinite Slick” off of Senbonzakura afterwards. The sword was probably on his workbench down in the Sakura Cave. Byakuya turned and attempted to exit his own closet, only to find his way blocked by the one opponent he had never truly bested: his 4’11”, stunningly beautiful and amazingly brilliant wife. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Excuse you?” Hisana asked, her eyes wide with false innocence. “You are not going down to the Sakura Cave.”

“I am going to the Sakura Cave.”

“You’re going down to the Sakura Cave because you’re going to drive us to the charity benefit in the pink Lambo, right?”

Byakuya regarded her. “The Sakuramobile is for official Captain Sakura business only. You are welcome to take the Aventador or the Huracan if you like.”

Hisana threw her hands out at her sides. “Byakuya. Look at me.”

Byakuya looked. Respectfully, of course. His wife was clad in a form-fitting navy blue sheath that flared just below her knees. From the front, the neckline was high and modest, but he knew for a fact that it swept low, exposing nearly the whole of her back. Her hair was swept up into an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. An array of tiny diamond hairpins shone like stars among the night sky of her tresses. Her makeup, as always, was impeccable, from her silvery smokey eye to the kissable red of her lips.

“Imagine!” she wailed. “Me! Walking through those huge doors at the Museum of Contemporary Art. By myself! To my own fundraiser!”

“I can imagine it,” Byakuya agreed. “You will turn every head in the room. That cad, Kuchiki, they will say. The fool. He knows not what he has.”

Hisana narrowed her eyes at him.

“The most beautiful woman in Seireitei City, for once, away from the overprotective glare of her impossibly handsome husband.”

Hisana rolled her eyes.

“You will have the undivided attention of every man in the room and more than a few of the women. They will be elbowing each other out of the way for the merest crumbs of your regard. And you, being you, should no doubt be able to spin these tragic circumstances into a positively dizzying pile of donation checks. That should make the orphans very happy, yes?”

Hisana’s face was screwed up into a lovely scowl, as her desire for his company warred with her love for parting cretinous billionaires from their walking-around money. Byakuya didn’t blame her, of course. She was a very patient and understanding woman to so frequently part from her charming and debonair husband in the best interests of Justice. Nevertheless, the city needed him at this desperate hour.

“And I promise,” Byakuya continued, lowering his eyelids seductively, “that I shall sweep in before the night concludes, to rebuke those fools who would ever doubt my devotion to you.”

The tip of Hisana’s nose twitched. He had her.

“You have to show up at the dedication of the new community center.”

“Of course I would show up--”

“In the costume.”

Byakuya’s jaw tightened. “Hisana.”

“Captain Sakura is the third most popular superhero among children aged 7 to 12.”

“Third! I used to be second!” Byakuya had an angry suspicion whom he had been overtaken by.

“Used to be,” Hisana replied. “Maybe you should think about making more personal appearances. And flex more. I hear that children love flexing.” Dammit, this further confirmed his suspicions.

Byakuya heaved a sigh. “Fine. I will show up and charm the little rapscallions. I will not ‘flex.’ Please, may I go now?”

Hisana gracefully stepped to one side. “Good luck. Stay safe.” She touched his arm gently as he swished past, and went up on her tiptoes to bring her face closer to his. “And check the umbrella stand in the front hall. That’s where your magic sword was last time.”

Captain Sakura alighted on the rooftop of Metropolitan Bank with the grace of a drifting flower petal. A large hole cratered the bitumen and the smell of C-4 hung unpleasantly in the air. Below, police sirens wailed and sirens cast blue and red reflections. Also, there was bickering.

“Are you sure he can breath in there?”

“I am a professional, of course he can breathe! You don’t believe me? I’ll trap you in a block of ice!”

“I never said I didn’t believe you, I just-- hey, look who’s here! Good to see you, Captain!”

Byakuya crossed his arms over his chest. “Yuki-onna. Sakura Boy.”

Yuki-onna, Mistress of the Ice and Snow, groaned. “You know very well he goes by Red Ronin now.”

Sakura Boy looked very much like he was biting his tongue as he tapped his massive whip-sword on his shoulder.

“Who was the perpetrator?” Byakuya asked, squinting inside the block of ice.

“That toothy bastard, Preying Mantis,” Sakura Boy supplied.

“He is one of the Ten Espada, you know, they often travel in--”

“We caught his dweeby sidekick downstairs, the police already have him,” Rukia replied. “We already swept the premises. You really didn’t need to come out.”

“It is bad enough,” Byakuya bit off, “that you two refused to take a honeymoon. You are supposed to be on a… a whatsit…” he waved one hand vaguely. “A stay-cation?”

“Eh, it’s not like we have hobbies,” Renji added, poking the block of ice with his sword.

“And aren’t you supposed to be raising money? For underprivileged children?” Rukia accused.

“I will be making a dramatically late entrance,” Byakuya snapped.

“Well,” Renji frowned philosophically, “as long as you’re here, can you help us figure out how to get this guy down to the ground?”

Children. You could raise them, give them their own utility belt, teach them to drive a jet ski, but they would still ask for your help in moving a seven-foot-tall mantis man trapped in a block of ice.

“Of course,” Byakuya agreed.

[california-raccoon]

untitled wip

A/N: Been sitting on this one for a few months, and if you graciously make it to the end and feel so inclined, you’re welcome to make suggestions on what happens next. Choose your own adventure, if you will.

--

“There’s at least a twenty-five percent chance of you falling to your death if you do that,”

“Don’t be such a baby - that’s a seventy-five percent success rate and a passing grade.”

“Yeah, barely. Maybe for a dropout... pun not intended—”

“Shut up, Ichigo. Will you help me or not?”

For all his scowling, the perpetual knot between his brows, and the bright rebel orange of his hair, Rukia knows Ichigo is nothing but a chocolate-coated ice cream cone, a crunchy protective exterior and soft mushy inside; it’s as if some nerdy, book-loving, calculator of a boy somehow possessed this would-be bully. The contrast delights her. So when she’s asking him to throw her up a tree for a self-proclaimed rescue mission, she knows it’s only about three pokes and one half-hearted argument away from actually happening.

She grins deviously when she sees him on the steps of the shrine, cleansing his hands at the station before approaching her.

“It’s a slow day today so I can probably sneak out for a bit,” she says stepping out of the administrative office and gesturing for him to follow her.

“How the hell did you even find the kitten up there?” Ichigo grumbles as she navigates them through the forest expanse, any markers of civilization suddenly nowhere to be seen. They stop at an old oak tree, tall as it is sprawling, just short two eyes and a mouth from becoming some wise elderly guardian to heroes of lore.

“I was taking a break from my Shinto duties around here when I heard it meow. Apparently Cheeto’s got a litter of babies.” Rukia says, assessing the branches and doing a few quick stretches.

“You’ve named at least five different strays Cheeto,”

“Yes, and now Puffs is in trouble.”

He rolls his eyes. “Why couldn’t you get Renji or like, a ladder to do this again?”

“Renji’s allergic to cats. And I’d need you to carry the ladder anyway if you insisted.” Rukia smiles at him. “So just help me up to this branch, and I think I can handle the rest.”

Hoisting her up by the waist, both of them are too focused on the task to blush, but when she finds purchase on the tree and climbs onto it with surprising agility, Ichigo can’t help the delayed reaction. He sees her up there, crouched on the bend of a thick branch, starry-eyed with determination and a smirk on her lips between the sun dappled foliage. She’s still wearing her traditional hakama, but traded her sandals for her high-tops.

“I could get used to you looking up at me for a change,” Rukia laughs before disappearing amongst the branches. “Keep an eye out for any visitors and my brother, okay?”

Ichigo turns around then, though in the middle of the forest, he’s not sure what she’s expecting. 

“You’d be a real bully at six-foot-five, if you weren’t already at four-eleven.”

“You don’t know that; I could be the gentlest tall person you’d ever meet. I could be like Chad.”

He snorts. “It would take more than a lifetime for you to be like Chad.”

“We have more in common than you think.” counters Rukia, her voice more distant than he’s comfortable hearing. “Actually, he would have loved helping the kittens today if he didn’t have practice. You should tell him to come visit more often.”

Ichigo is about retort, to say that Shinto shrines aren’t exactly hip after-school hang out spots just because she’s got family priestess duties and gets bored, but there’s a patterned crunch of leaves somewhere close that draws his attention, and he stays silent to figure out the direction it’s coming from.

“Excuse me,” a voice calls out in broken Japanese, and Ichigo sets his eyes on a foreign couple who’ve clearly lost their way. “We are… shrine.. looking which way?” The woman asks, camera strap hanging from her neck in the universal sign for “tourist” and an apologetic look on her face.

“Over there,” he steps out towards them to point out the way with a series of exaggerated gestures and his own broken English. The result is appalling, because even if he can quote them Shakespeare in its original language and explain it to them in Japanese, it’s absolutely useless for telling them that they need to turn around and take a left once they find the road.

It takes longer than he expects, eventually just walking them as close to the main road as possible. When he’s finally managed to get them on the right path, Ichigo turns around, realizing several things at once. One, he did not actually help a couple but a woman with a spirit following her; Two, the ghost has now stuck to him, knowing he’s been seen; And three, he’s lost the damn tree.

“Ah fuck.” He grumbles out, and the ghost laughs like he understands.

“Do you know where that tree was - where I was standing?” He turns to the ghost, but the man doesn’t seem to speak Japanese either, so Ichigo just walks back into the forest with his best intuitions. He’s not sure how long he’s been wandering in the sprawling forest, mistaking one monstrous oak tree for another.

The sun is hitting the trees aglow in beams that Ichigo would consider beautiful if he wasn’t so damn lost. It’s almost sunset which worries him. Besides Rukia literally lost in the trees, she’s warned him before about the malicious spirits that love to come out after dark. Especially in non-inhabited places. Like forests, for example.

He gulps.

“Ichigo!” He hears a yell and heads towards the voice with relief.

“Oy, Rukia, where the fuck are you?”

“Stay where you are,” she yells. The order puts his senses on alert. “I need you to head back to the shrine and grab a talisman for me.”

He’s about to move but the plan sinks in. “That’s stupid - do you know how long it took me to find you again? By the time I come back it’ll be too dark.”

“Fourty-five paces left from the top of the stairs exiting the shrine; take another left and another sixty paces. If you hurry, it’ll still be light!” She says it as clearly and quickly as she can, and her urgency doesn’t escape his notice.

He turns and runs.

[hashtagartistlife]

Maybe fate was called fate because some things weren’t choices; some things were simply written into his DNA, woven into the very fabric of the universe. World orders. The sky is blue. The sun is hot. He is in love with Kuchiki Rukia.

Kuchiki Rukia is dying.  

Ten years after the defeat of Yhwach, it’s time Ichigo and Rukia started facing some truths— about the world, about themselves, and about each other. 

so, i haven’t written anything decent in over a year, but i AM sitting on literal tens of thousands of words of unfinished fic, and i figure, what the hell, there’s some good writing in here that deserves to see the light of day. so in that vein, here’s a couple chapters of my absolute favourite unfinished fic, the one i’m almost too scared to work on because i just want it to be that good. god give me the perseverance and skill to finish this one day because if i leave any legacy behind in the bleach fandom i want it to be this fic. 

the premise for this fic can be found here | this is chapter 1 | chapter 2

________________________________________________________________

F  r  a  y

 by hashtagartistlife

________________________________________________________________

It’s rotating

Rotating

Every time the sun and the moon touch each other

Constantly changing its appearance to something new

If there’s something that doesn’t change

It is my impotence

It’s rotating

If destiny is made of gears

And we are the sand in between that is torn apart

There’s nothing left to do but be powerless

If I cannot protect by just extending my hand

I want a blade so I can reach in front of her

The power to crush destiny

—looks like a blade that has been swung down

  One

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.

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12 years ago

Karakura Town

Rukia sleeps like the dead. The irony of this isn’t lost on Ichigo, as he glances out the corner of his eyes to see her out like a light against his covers, her homework splayed everywhere like she isn’t just going to make him do it for her at the last minute again. Her eyes are closed and she looks peaceful, even as her arms are twisted under her at an awkward angle. She was going to get cramps if she kept sleeping like that. He calls her name, softly and then a little louder, but she doesn’t budge an inch.

He sighs and gathers her up in his arms; she stirs a little, murmuring a sleepy protest that he ignores. He settles her in the closet and arranges the blankets, taking a moment to study the lines of her face.

“Idiot,” he mutters, “stop falling asleep on my bed. I’ll just push you onto the floor next time.”

It’s a lie. Rukia’s only reaction to this is to shift a little in her sleep, to curve her body in his direction like a plant tending towards the sun. He smiles a little at that, despite himself, and fights an inane urge to sweep her hair off her forehead and place a kiss there. 

“Sleep well, Rukia,” he whispers instead, and slides the closet door shut.

She does.

.

.

.

Present Day

Soul Society

Rukia never sleeps.

She wanders through the halls of Kuchiki Manor like a ghost, weaving in and out of lucidity; she’s never slept particularly well, even as a Rukon street rat, but this… this sleepwalking is new. Renji himself tended to be a light sleeper, a product of their shared childhood when uninterrupted sleep had been a luxury they couldn’t afford, but not to this extent. He silently watches the dark circles under her eyes grow bigger and deeper with every passing day, and worries.

In the beginning, the smallest things had woken her up. She often stirred beside him, restless and alert, till well into the small hours of the morning. When he’d brought it up, she’d brushed it off; she’s always had trouble sleeping, she said. He should know this by now, and it isn’t anything to worry about—she can take care of herself, Renji, didn’t he trust her? It had sounded an awful lot like a dismissal, a warning to drop it, so he had.

But then she’d had Ichika, and things changed.

The first time he catches her slipping out of bed, he assumes that she is going for a walk in the garden. It was a habit she was slipping into more nights than most, and he doesn’t think twice. But when he wakes up again in the pre-dawn, and discovers the futon beside him still empty, he panics. He finds her at the gate, a cold hand on the latch, as if to walk out; god knows how long she’s been there for. When he touches her on the shoulder, turns her around, she blinks like she’s surfacing from a trance. Her eyes haze, then refocus.

“Renji…?” she asks, in a voice so thready it’s barely audible, “What are you doing here?”

He swallows the same question rising in his throat and mutters something hasty about how she’s been too tired lately; she should take the day off. She looks surprised at that, and quietly follows him back to the manor. She does as he advises and stays home that day.

It doesn’t help. The very next night Renji catches her slipping out of bed again. He grabs her by a wrist, but then she turns to him and whispers, eyes clear—

“Ichigo?”

He freezes, and when she pulls her arm from his grip, he lets her slip through his fingers once more.

Ichigo?

His hands fist in the sheets of their shared bed; he hasn’t seen an expression like that on her in over a decade. Hopeful, young, happy—

A boy with bright orange hair, and a sword as long as his height.

Renji finds, once again, that he is at a loss for what to do next.

He thinks that maybe he didn’t have a clue from the start.

.

.

.

Present day

10:05 am

Karakura Town

 A beat of silence, then—

“Yo.”

“Hey!”

His face is familiar, but the carefully mild expression on it is not. Rukia finds that she dislikes it, but it isn’t her place to say anymore. She shoulders her way into the clinic, and ignores the way the heat of his body still radiates like it did ten years ago.  She scoffs a little, wracks her mind for an appropriate jab that might recapture their easy banter from once upon a time; but what leaves her lips makes little sense, considering the fact that this is her first time seeing him in ten years (let alone setting foot in the clinic). Thankfully, he rises to the bait.

“I see this little place is as empty as ever. And is that—yup, I think I even hear some crickets!”

“Shut up. This is an emergency clinic, so it’s a good thing it’s empty, isn’t it?”

He hasn’t lost his habit of grumbling under his breath about her insults. Rukia allows a small smile to touch her lips as she makes her way to the living room, confident with the layout of the place; she doubts renovation is a thought that crosses his mind with any frequency. She encounters the old Karakura gang, and the twins; they’d all grown so much. The twins, especially; she would have gathered them both into hugs and pat them on their heads, had they not both been grown women and far taller than her now. Orihime comes down to greet her, beaming, in an apron—there’s an edge of surrealism to all of this, almost. She looks well, and for that, Rukia is glad. Everyone looks well. Peacetime suits them.

There’s a small kerfuffle as Ichigo rejoins them, and he points out that her daughter is missing. Rukia starts, and finds it to be true. She and Renji split up to find her; Ichigo accompanies her, nagging all the while.

“—nbelievable, how do you lose your own daughter—“

“Hey, I don’t see your child hanging around the premises! Don’t you have a son, too?”

“Kazui’s—Kazui’s fine, Orihime’s keeping a watch on him—“

“Yeah, well, I’m telling you Ichika’s fine too, there’s nothing in the human world that could possibly hurt her—“

She stumbles; a wave of vertigo hits her and she loses her balance, careening towards the asphalt in front of his house. He’s there in an instant, arms strong around her waist; he pulls her back upright and doesn’t let her go. “Easy—“

She pulls away, only to sway again and grip onto his arm for support. Shit, not this today. She thought it had been getting better lately—Ichigo didn’t need to deal with this.

His brow furrows, and he almost looks fifteen again. “Hey, Rukia, are you—“

“—I’m fine,” she cuts him off, struggling to sound nonchalant, but the hand fisted in his shirt is trembling. She’ll let go soon, when the world around her stops spinning. “I’m just a little tired—“

“Rukia,” he says quietly, and she ignores him, focusing on channelling strength back into her legs. For the love of everything holy, why couldn’t she stop shaking—

“Rukia,” he repeats, louder, and grips her shoulders. “Rukia, stop—“

“Stop what?” she asks weakly, then: “Oh.”

His hair and clothes are dusted white with snow; the tips of his fingers, where he’s touching her, are frosted over blue. Ice creeps over the street and telephone poles in tendrils. Rukia heaves an unsteady breath and closes her eyes, pulling the fraying edges of her reiatsu back within herself.

When she opens them again, he’s inches from her face.

“Kami—“ she jerks back, snatching her arm from his grasp. “Have you ever heard of personal space, Ichigo—“

“Like you ever respected mine?” he retorts, but straightens up; his hands rub the nape of his neck. “What was that, Rukia?”

“Nothing,” she snaps. She draws her arms around herself to still the trembling. “Like I said, I’m tired—“

“To this extent? How hard are they working you over at the Seireitei—“

“I can take care of myself!” the words come out too loud, echoing in the empty street. “Need I remind you, I’m centuries older than you are—“

“Well maybe if you weren’t such a midget I’d remember that once in a while—“

“Hey, Ichigo, Rukia! We found her!” Renji’s call interrupts their bickering, and they draw away from each other hastily; they’d been leaning in towards each other again. Rukia deliberately turns away from Ichigo.

“You found her? Where was she?”

“In Ichigo’s room. Well, Yuzu’s room, now, I suppose. She was with Kazui. I think we were worried for nothing, Rukia, they get along like a house on fire.”

“Oh—good. Good.” She’s still a little disoriented, so Renji’s words are taking some time to sink in; he eyes her face, paler than usual, and steps up to put an arm around her. Ordinarily, she would have been annoyed at him for that, but today she appreciates the support. She tries not to visibly sag as she leans against him.

Ichigo’s eyes burn holes into her all the way back to the clinic. 

.

.

.

9:46 pm

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Rukia disguises the fatigue that has settled over her like a shroud by staying close to Renji and surreptitiously leaning against him whenever things get too hard. She puts on a bright façade for everyone else; she thinks she does a convincing job, too, but Ichigo’s eyes linger on her all the same. Orihime prattles on about how they hadn’t seen each other in ages and she’s so happy for the two of them and isn’t Ichika just a darling? They must be so proud—

She nods weakly, glad that Orihime is the kind of person who can hold up entire conversations on her own. She has missed them too, she has, how could she not—but the circumstances of their reunion are less than ideal, and she knows that she won’t be able to see them again for a long time after this. Even after ten years of stability, opening a doorway into the gensei is precarious business; missions in the world of the living are now all long-term, to minimise the number of passages being opened. Their own trip had been a very, very special extenuation, granted only because the reason the universe still stood as it did today was Ichigo.

A week was all they’d been given. After that, who knew when they could return? So, she is trying, she is trying—but her body is so, so heavy, and the pressure of keeping her wildly fluctuating reiatsu under wraps is taking its toll. She participates less and less in the conversation, hoping people won’t take notice.

Ichigo puts his foot down when she nods off for the fifth time in as many minutes; he cuts the party short and ushers everyone out, with the promise that they could all return tomorrow. She tries to protest when he directs them to the guest bedroom – ‘Urahara has a place for us, we shouldn’t intrude’—but it’s Orihime who tells them don’t be silly, Kazui and Ichika are such fast friends, it’d be a shame to split them up already. The children are excitedly building a pillow fort under the dining room table, and, too tired to argue, Rukia acquiesces.

As soon as Renji hits the bed, he falls straight asleep. He’s had a rough few nights, what with her tossing and turning keeping him awake, too, and Rukia feels a wave of guilt wash over her. She hopes tonight will be a little more restful for him. She stretches out gingerly on the double bed next to him, tucking the covers around her and closing her eyes.

The last thing she is conscious of before the suffocating embrace of sleep is the deep low hum of Ichigo’s reiatsu through the house.

.

.

.

2:57 am

Ichigo wakes to the sound of the clinic door opening.

Beside him, Orihime is still sound asleep; his wife had always been a deep sleeper, capable of ignoring storms, earthquakes, and anything else the Karakura night cared to throw at them. Ichigo, on the other hand, woke often; a holdover from nights spent hunting hollows, from sleep frequently interrupted by a hiss in his ear and a small hand slamming into his forehead. He sits up and shakes the last vestiges of his dreams –curiously unsettled tonight—from his mind, and shuffles outside to investigate.

It’s not the kids. They’re both fast asleep, holed up in their pillow fort; he tiptoes past them, careful not to wake either. He steps out onto the street, and his breath catches in his throat.

Rukia’s there. She’s ethereal in the moonlight, white skin almost glowing, that true-black hair swaying behind her with the wind. She’s looking up, up, up, to something he can’t see, and the curve of her neck and the delicate line of her wrists and ankles captivate him. Had she always been this fragile-looking?

“Rukia,” he rasps, voice still scratchy with sleep, “what are you doing?”

She turns her head to face him; her eyes are huge and dark like bruises in the pale moon of her face. Something about her gaze is both clear and dreamy; Ichigo has the feeling that she’s seeing right through him to something beyond, but also focusing on him with the kind of relentless intensity he only half-remembers from dreams of the past. She takes a tentative step in his direction. 

“Ichigo?” she asks, in a voice as intransient as smoke, and he does not back away.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “yeah, it’s me. I’m here.” 

She reaches for him and, instinctively, automatically, he mirrors her; he is expecting her to need support, to meet his hands with hers, but instead she goes straight past his open arms to place her hands on either side of his face.

Before he has time to react, she leans up and kisses him.

Everything in him short-circuits; the world slows and all he is aware of is the softness of her lips on his. They part slightly, and the breathy sigh she lets out electrifies all of his senses. Faster than his thoughts can catch up, his hands are gripping her shoulders and he thinks that maybe he meant to push her away, but finds he’s only clutching her closer, closer. His eyelids fall shut with a groan as her mouth opens under his — and then the kiss changes, dangerous and hot and wanting. 

He presses his face blindly into hers, and walks her backwards into the stone wall that surrounds his house. She lets out a tiny gasp as her back hits the rough surface, and he uses the distraction to sweep his tongue across hers. Her fingers curl viciously into his neck and he revels in the sensation; there’s nothing but her her her in this world, her taste in his mouth and her scent in his nose and the feel of her skin, fever-hot, against his own. His fingers move to tangle in her hair and she makes a noise at the back of her throat that destroys what little rationality he has left; he hitches her up against the wall and kisses her as though she’s about to dissolve into thin air.

They both draw back for air at the same time; their eyes meet across the infinitesimal space and then Rukia blinks, once, twice, before Ichigo sees something click back into those bruised-violet depths.

“Ichigo…?”

A realisation of his own slams into place; his eyes widen and he disentangles himself from her, stepping back frantically as though that will erase what has just transpired between them. He only barely resists the childish urge to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Rukia slides down the wall without his weight holding her up; the dreamy glaze is gone completely from her eyes, and it’s replaced instead with a bone-deep weariness that sets Ichigo’s instincts on edge. Half of him wants to run far, far away from her, the other half wants to gather her into his arms and—

“Ichigo, what are you doing here?”

The tone of her voice, slightly irritated, so ridiculously normal, brings him back down to earth. He casts about in his jumbled mind for a suitable response and flings the first one he finds at her.

“Y—I could ask you the same thing—“

She seems to notice her surroundings then, looking side to side at the deserted street. An expression somewhere between horror and resignation crosses her face. “I—was I sleepwalking—?“

“Was that what it was?”  he retorts, the memory of the kiss burning in his mind. His face feels uncomfortably hot. “Rukia, what’s going on with you—“

“Nothing!” she snaps, but then she sways on the spot; in a flare of panic, Ichigo flash-steps beside her, and she falls into his chest. The spike of reiatsu through his body after not having called upon it for years makes his head spin, but he braces them both against a telephone pole and they manage to stay upright. Her jasmine-scented hair tickles his nose.

“Rukia—“ his voice is thick, choked, but she pushes him aside; impatient, indignant.

“I’m fine, Ichigo, you don’t have to treat me like a child—sleepwalking is hardly a medical emergency.”

She takes a deep breath, before standing on her own; her knees are a little wobbly, but she turns her back on him once more, just as she did that morning. “I’m going back to bed. You should, too.”

A pause. Then, softer; “Goodnight, Ichigo.”

The door to his clinic swings shut after her, and Ichigo slides down the telephone pole slowly.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears in a way that it hasn’t in ten years.