when the tide is high

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Thirty-Two

2009-12-14T04:23:05Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: Two go looking for a redhead. (3200 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

Coincidentally, it is Monday. I am just about dead. Enjoy.

* * *

Thirty-Two: Sojourn

The week crawls by as Rukia is lost in the hubbub of covert activity around the delegation from Yellow Springs. While Fifth has its everyday troubles, Renji has an industrious vice-captain and a division eager to forget the stigma still shrouding it—his people work harder than mostly anyone else in the Gotei. Only his own unrest mars the relative peace. Rukia, when he sees her, flits into his quarters and then out again, streaming concerns and bits of news.

He knows that she must. He nods and listens and, on more than one night, carries her into bed after she dozes off with her head in her papers. Any of that can't stop him from counting the days.

It's been six when they meet at the dimensional gate and emerge, after the vertiginous plunge of stepping between worlds, in Karakura Town. A scintillating, late afternoon greets them. Renji pinches his eyes shut until the bout of double vision abates and his gigai responds fully. Beside him, Rukia checks the clasp in her hair and smooths her skirt.

They haven't gone over much of this. Such discussion would hardly have fit in the last days, and much depends on Ichigo's reactions. As for himself, Renji muses, he'll try and postpone smacking Ichigo one until after they have talked. All in good time.

"Ready?"

"Yes." Rukia's fingers brush over the backs of his. "As ready as I can be."

"It would've been faster to just go up," he says as they stride around the block where Ichigo's building is located.

"He hates it when I don't enter properly." She lowers her voice in a passable imitation of Ichigo. " 'Rukia? This is a freaking window, and that is the damn front door. Would it kill you to use the doorbell?' "

"Heard that a few times, huh?"

"I did not count."

"That still doesn't explain the gigai." She insisted on them. Not that he really minds—there are worse things than the addling sensation upon merging with a gigai, most often over soon.

"I thought... it might be easier this way." As he pulls open the front door, she slips up the stairwell ahead of him. "Our friends can see us, but when I think about it... It feels eerie, to know the person you're with appears to be empty air to most others."

"Ichigo's a shinigami, too. M'not sure that'd make much of a difference."

"He is also human." She gives him a steady look. "If we want this to be a good thing for all of us, we can't discount that."

"You got a point." He slants a crooked smile her way. "Hell, if it helps, we can hash this out in damn verse."

"I don't think that will be necessary." The doorbell echoes in the room beyond as she rings it.

"I had to recite fuckin' haiku for him once." Now, Renji can chuckle at the memory of his and Ichigo's first run-in with the locals in Yellow Springs. "Thankless bastard laughed his ass off afterwards."

"You see why I do not trust Urahara-san's translation device to help in the talks?" She cants her head. "A machine that makes you adhere to a randomly changing rhyme scheme is hardly better than a limited language skill."

"He's not done with the... beta testin' yet?"

"So it seems," she says, tapping her hand on the door. "I don't think Ichigo is home, unless he's climbing out the window as we speak."

"Glad to see you can find the humour in this." Renji huffs a laugh at the mental image. "I can't sense him, either, though he's got better at hidin' his power. Want me to go see?"

"Please do."

Once free of his false body, Renji shrugs through the door, then tightens his own being again. Dust motes stir in the air at his invisible passage. There is a small smattering of post just inside the door. The curtains are drawn halfway, the futon rolled up, the neatness of the room an intimation of absence. Without Ichigo, it is simply a narrow space semi-lit by the sun splashed on the wall, pallid and impersonal.

He slips back to the corridor and into his gigai, flexing the fingers to make sure they move properly. "Nobody there. I don't think he's been home for a bit. Looks too tidy."

"I see. He didn't mention..."

"Not sure he would have, you know."

She digs into her satchel after her phone. "Maybe we could ask someone to track..."

"One substitute shinigami?" He arches a brow. "Sure that'd be faster, but we probably know someone 'round here that can help."

"That is true. Let's go, then." Turning on her heel, she starts down the stairs.

His door open a crack, Ishida looks them up and down like a pair of alleyway idiots. "What makes you think I would be interested in Kurosaki's whereabouts? If you have misplaced a shinigami, I am hardly the person to ask."

Renji hasn't finished rolling his eyes when Rukia joins him outside, having excused them with a few polite phrases. "We should ask Orihime," she suggests with a collected veneer he almost buys. "They study in the same place."

"Ichigo?" Orihime's eyes are wide, her concern heartfelt. "I actually haven't seen him after class this week. Maybe we should organise a search party? I could ask the Rikka if they would mind flying reconnaissance..."

Renji intercepts before she can offer up her fairies for the sake of their search. Still, by the time they trundle up to Sado's door, he is getting ready to hoist finding Ichigo off to the caprices of the Twelfth.

"He's in Shikoku," Sado says in tones of mild surprise. "With his family."

"Thank you," Rukia breathes a hair too effusively.

Armed with an address salvaged from a brochure on the Kurosaki kitchen table, they head to the train station. More precisely, it is Rukia who changes course. The streetlights flicker into cool gleams against the gathering twilight.

"Shikoku," he says. "That's to the south, right? I was there on a field commission once."

"I'm sure someone at the station can advise us," she says. "They have people who are paid to answer silly questions, and this is a very reasonable one. You wanted to solve this on our own."

He sighs, not for the first time that day.

* * *

The landscape whooshes past in murky blurs interspersed by streaking lights. Renji nods off more than once; exhaustion appears to sidle in quicker when in a gigai. A bowed old woman sitting across from them natters at Rukia without pause for the first two hours. Rukia elbows him awake to help pry the lady's copious baggage from the overhead shelf, but curls close once they are alone and he's sprawled back into his seat.

"So." He knuckles his eye. "Still think takin' the train's a capital idea?"

"I didn't think it'd be so expensive. It is convenient, though, you must admit that."

"Compared to goin' home, sortin' out the red tape for recalibratin' a gate on notice this short... Probably." He could throw his weight around as a captain, but using his authority for such a personal reason might not go over too well.

"I've sort of wanted to try this. Maybe finding Ichigo is as good a reason as any."

He has noted her fascination with the living world before. Once, she might have debunked the whole notion as unbecoming of a shinigami, yet he understands that was part of her Kuchiki schooling more than a part of her as he knew her—his Rukia, his friend, his family.

He's turning over how to express that as she nods her head against his arm. "I can't help wondering."

"Hmm?"

"Can this work, Renji? Doesn't it seem like he... left on purpose?"

"You bought the damn tickets," he mutters. "A bit late for second thoughts, don'tcha think?"

"Not second thoughts." Her voice falls. "Only... Ichigo. This is his world. He has a family here. He's studying to do something he wants."

He lets his arm drape around her shoulders. "No one's askin' him to give that up. Any more than you're gonna stop helpin' with the talks, or I'm gonna toss the Fifth off to Hinamori." Her worries ring familiar to him; he knows more than he cares to admit about the intangible walls that bar people from each other.

"Of course not," she breathes. "But he won't always have those things, or this world."

A weight shifts in his chest. Ichigo seems to straddle his two lives without even trying, but has Renji ever watched him closely enough? He knows Karakura is Ichigo's home. Yet he belongs equally in Soul Society, in the dust of the training sands and in the corners of Renji's Rukongai haunts, roaming the streets of Seireitei and annoying Rukia at the Thirteenth.

"Yeah, that's a fact." Ichigo is mortal, no matter his unusual—if not unique—lineage. "You know, I always figured I knew some things about Kurosaki Ichigo. He doesn't bow down to anyone, an' he sticks to what he believes in. All of Seireitei was on his ass, but fuck that. He still came to get you." He skims another unspoken barrier; she now knows she faced execution at the Soukyoku, but he hasn't asked if she has a memory of the events. If he could choose to erase a few things, his own impending death might be near the top.

"You 'figured'?" She traps the word like a moth cupped in her hands. "What changed?"

"Don't know yet. Maybe nothin'." Distracted, he rakes his shaggy hair back from his temples. "It's just that the Ichigo I know doesn't turn tail. Hope I'm still right."

"This must seem strange," she says, half smothered against his shirt. "I mean, the three of us."

"He's gotta know his mind sooner or later." Severe though the sentiment may be, it mingles with a myriad of other emotions: frustration, bemusement, a sense of longing, gratitude at Rukia's weary presence.

"So many layers," she says low, a slur tinting her voice.

"We still got a ways to go. You don't hafta sort it all out this second." Renji pries the clasp from her hair. In response, she tucks herself tighter against him, her eyes closing.

"Mm, I could sleep for a while."

"Now you're talkin'. I'll just..." Laughter nudges his shoulders at the familiar phrase, however new the context. "I'll keep an eye out."

"Thank you," she mutters.

It doesn't take long for her to relax entirely into his side. The train car is nearly empty, the lights low, but he stays awake to count the stations, afloat in his own thoughts.

* * *

They round a corner and are met with a piece of traditional architecture perhaps best described as quaintly rundown. The inn—hotel—is hemmed by a row of trees in fresh spring leaf, quiet under the slight morning chill.

"This is it," Rukia declares. They are rumpled and tousled after the trip. At least she had the know-how to order them a breakfast at a café next to the local train station. Gigai are geared towards sojourns in field conditions; they have greater endurance than the average human.

"This has gotta be the nuttiest thing I've done in a while." Renji straightens his hat so the legend on it no longer droops to the left.

"I could remind you of a similar occasion not too long ago." She can't help the gravity the thought carries. The distance may be far shorter, their intentions of a different kind, but the parallels do not disperse so easily, even though Renji and Ichigo's journey to find her now seems only a beginning.

"Don't," he says, surprisingly earnest. "We can get nostalgic later if we gotta."

"Yes." Gathering her wits, she leads the way into the building. Once in the hall, she has just spotted a desk and a somewhat tiredly smiling, middle-aged woman behind it when a voice booms from her left: "Rukia-chan! What a wonderful surprise!"

She is only delayed a heartbeat. Behind her, Renji squints as if to connect an identity to Kurosaki Isshin, who strides up to them across the lobby, in a shirt that rivals Renji's usual colour scale in its sheer loudness. Rukia comes forward, dipping her head politely.

"Good morning, Kurosaki-san."

"Always so formal! It must come with the Kuchiki name. You'll get over it some day." Isshin pats her on the head, then turns to Renji. "Captain Abarai," he says. "Congratulations on the promotion. Don't get stuck with the post. It gets old shockingly fast."

"Not promoted just yet, but I'll keep that in mind," Renji rejoins, a befuddled grin pulling at his cheek. It occurs to Rukia that she may well have more experience with the phenomenon that is Ichigo's father.

"Ah, but you're still young and bright-eyed. Give it a few hundred years." Isshin claps Renji on the shoulder with his characteristic verve. "What brings you here? I do have to suspect you aren't here simply to delight Daddy, Rukia-chan."

"Yes." She flounders, then recovers her manners. "I mean, yes, in fact, we were looking for Ichigo. Would you—is he with you?" She sidesteps closer to Renji as she speaks, hears him chuckle under his breath.

"My foolish son has braved Mt. Ishizuchi this morning!" Isshin spreads his hands. "His sisters were forlorn, but if he needs solitude, it's a family's part to support its son. And if he has discovered a passion for mountaineering, the same goes in that case."

"Mt. Ishizuchi?" Renji's eyebrows knit. "That's... a sacred mountain, somethin' like that?"

"Correct! Hmm, perhaps it is spiritual illumination he seeks instead."

Rukia casts a careful look at Renji. Kneading his temple with his fingertips, he inclines his head in agreement. Might as well, his expression suggests, even if it is edging towards Oh, fuck this shit.

"Kurosaki-san? It is of some importance that we speak with Ichigo," she says. "How would we find him?"

For the first time, Isshin's jovial visage sharpens. Rukia keeps her smile in place, aware of at least several ways in which the situation is out of the ordinary. This has grown into a personal quest of some kind, the tiny oddities heaping on top of each other to turn it into an outlandish wandering across Karakura and out on a late night train to a destination she's never seen.

"Ichigo took the morning bus. If you're planning on climbing the mountain, Karin had better loan you some hiking boots."

"That would be very kind," she says hastily. "I..."

"I don't believe we have anyone in the household with Abarai-san's shoe size, though."

"Eh, m'fine," Renji half hums. "She's the one with the dainty shoes." She prods him in the ankle with the heel of her both comfortable and practical sandal.

"Sit tight, Rukia-chan." Isshin gestures towards the counter. "The lady over there should know about the buses. I will be back."

With that, he disappears the way he came. As if her legs had been bearing some unseen load, she falls into one of the chairs by the wall. For a moment, she has to marvel at Ichigo's father. Underneath the bluster, his faith or trust in his son goes deep. She wouldn't dare squander this opportunity, whatever her own doubts. "Oh, goodness."

"We're in a goddamn folk tale," Renji sighs. "Find the house empty, gather clues from the idiot's friends, have stupid side trips that do fuck-all for the actual goal, meet with the old man of the mountain for sage advice..."

"I'm quite sure the mountain only comes in later." Rukia scrapes together what's left of her good sense and pragmatism. "Shall we find this bus?"

Crossing his arms, he grunts indignantly in answer, but she fancies she hears the 'Course, just lead on there nonetheless.

* * *

Ichigo drags himself up over the ledge and off the plummet of the cliff's face. The damp grass cools his flushed face, but he pulls himself up almost at once. The support chains that lead up the cliff provide a trial for pilgrims; he's had his fill ascending this first set. His palms burn even through the protective gloves.

He got on the bus at the crack of dawn, armed with map and rucksack and proper footwear, still not quite sure if he was in his right mind. It's a mountain with a shrine at the summit, that is all. Maybe it was just the thought of spending another day with his father that made him pursue a whim.

As he scampers up and spreads the map again, the wind and the solitude soak into his senses. People came here on pilgrimages to cleanse themselves, to redefine or discover something. He tries not to wonder.

The path is all but overgrown, his boots crunching over rambling grasses. Up ahead, clouds chase each other around the highest peak, glowing the colour of mother-of-pearl in the sun. The exertion feels good, as if he is more alive and aware than normally, open in a way he associates more with being out of his body.

He surprised his sisters by asking, at the last minute, to be included in the family trip. He'd planned to stay and study, maybe to make up for that he hasn't been able to think straight all week. Every thought seems to warp upon itself and return to the one topic he's trying to avoid.

Don't think it, he snaps at himself. Here, he can almost pour himself empty of all distraction, the way he does when focusing on a spirit pressure or a ribbon. Want and confusion and his own temper can't trip him.

The path slips under trees, dappled in green shadows. A wooden causeway stretches before him, turning his steps into staccato beats.

You figure this is gonna help? Or are you just running after all? There goes his focus. His heart hammers as he pauses, head bent back to suck in a few deep breaths.

I don't know. I was supposed to be fine, but the second I think about it...

A part of him acknowledges what he is trying to do. Maybe, if he drives himself hard enough, he can bleed these feelings from himself. The thought both cuts and soothes him, like a smooth curve of glass ending in a jagged rim.

It all comes back to one thing. He knows what he wants. He doesn't know how to hold it, how to grasp something that defies any definition he's managed so far.

Up again, he resumes his pace. Since he's come this far, he ought to climb all the way. The rhythm of his own steps teases his mind back where every perception is crisp and immediate, the world widening and sprawling out under his senses.

It still takes him a few seconds to comprehend someone is coming up the path behind him, sharp and resolute and very familiar.

* * *

<< Part Thirty-One: Threshold

jaina is a wicked, wicked enabler.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Thirty-One

2009-12-10T19:45:03Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: Ichigo ducks and covers, Renji speaks the truth, and Rukia rises to the occasion. (3500 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

Coincidentally, it is Thursday. No, I am not dead. Enjoy.

* * *

Thirty-One: Threshold

This complicates things.

Ichigo peers at the ceiling, from the mess of cushions Renji calls a couch. His body is heavy, limber, alive with the persisting memory of touch. He reaches a hand up against the light and watches it limn his fingers.

"Different, though," Renji summed up the situation. "Think you can handle that?" It doesn't come close to reality. He pushed through a boundary with no plan or even expectation what would lie on the other side.

He knows what he's done to the two people somehow, right now, closest to him. He asked one to wait and then demanded something more of the other. His back stiffens with anxiety.

Fuck, Rukia, I... If she were here now, what would he say? Is he sorry? He's no expert in matters of the heart, but this seems a violation of his request to her. No matter what Renji said in the quiet just afterwards; no matter that Ichigo brought her up himself.

He never meant for things to go this far, this fast. If he ever meant for them to go here.

"Hey." Renji's voice jolts him. He rises in a too-fast motion, his balance half a second behind. Standing up seems a better position to face Renji. His kimono is still sprawled on the table, carelessly thrown aside.

"Whoa, there." Renji reaches towards him. He regains his stability in time to step back, then towards his clothes. "Where're you goin'?"

The explanation scrapes in Ichigo's mouth as he picks up the robes. "Thought... thought I should go sleep at the Thirteenth. You know." He shrugs, as if that elaborated his point. How is he supposed to be? The lines have been redrawn. In finding something new about Renji he seems to have scattered the old and familiar.

"I didn't go, did I?" Damn it, Renji asked him if he was sure. He was, too—so very sure. His own airy words flit through his mind. How easy would it be for Renji to throw them back at him?

Renji's eyes remain languid, appraising. "Sure. Catch you tomorrow? You're stayin' the weekend?"

"Yeah."

"Go on, shoo." Ichigo can almost hear the well-worn "kid" that should round off the sentence. He steps to the door and grabs his sword. This would be Renji's cue to stop him, to demand an explanation, to do anything but let him go.

" 'Night." As soon as Renji hums something that can be interpreted as an answer, Ichigo fumbles the door open and shut again behind him. This time he isn't running. He keeps his steps soft and springy, suddenly conscious of the late hour.

He isn't running. He's... regrouping.

That is all.

* * *

Rukia is woken in the grey twilight by a hell butterfly from her captain. It has barely finished its message as she already hurries out the door with a comb crooked in her hair, belled sleeves flapping behind her, to tumble into Ukitake's office all of fifteen minutes out of bed.

He smiles at her, halfway amused, and pours her a cup of tea. He excuses himself to the filing room until she has fixed her hair and swallowed the tea in a few hasty gulps. Then he returns, seats himself across from her and begins his explanation.

Two hours later she is sitting in the office surrounded by reference documents. Her crisp calligraphy distorts into too-long dashes and too-wide loops as she tries to pin down every idea brought on by the conversation.

Her fourth page of notes is filling when Renji blows in, slamming the door aside with a strained grind of wood. His reiatsu glows like banked coals on the verge of flaring. Her brush skids a track of ink across the page before she can halt her hand. "Renji? What—"

"He left." He all but spits the phrase.

"Hmm? I'm sorry, I've been here all morning—did you hear?" Oh, he doesn't even know yet! She almost leaps into the news before he goes on.

"Ichigo. He left. They were supposed to stay another day. I saw Sado an' Orihime. Not a beep outta him since yesterday. He was supposed to..."

"Oh." Rukia pauses with the faint sound. "Well, he can come and go as he likes, can't he?"

"Seems that's all he freakin' does."

"Why is that so important?" She scoops sand from a carved box to sprinkle over the wet ink.

"Look, Rukia..." His tone diverts her from the task. Exasperation tilts his mouth, but his face is drawn taut with emotion. Whatever his concern is, she can't hear it with divided focus.

"I am sorry. I'm listening."

He unruffles somewhat at her softer timbre. "He came to talk to me last night. It ended up... somethin' else."

Some deeper nuance in his words tightens her throat. "What do you mean?"

"I figure... I got somethin' I needed." He rubs his thumb over his eyebrow. A memory shivers in her mind of him recoiling from her fingers on that same spot. "Only it... Fuck, look, I didn't mean for it to go that far."

"Were you not supposed to talk to him?"

"It didn't stop at talking, Rukia."

"I do not..." In that moment she does understand, taking in his resigned sincerity, the way he stands, shoulders slumped, but braced for her reaction. He expects her to be angry or chastise him. Her insides go cold with disappointment, then a pang of self-reproach.

You did the same to him when he frustrated you—sought consolation from Ichigo. Is that what it was? Is that all it was? Her head bows over her papers, her haste forgotten. Ichigo offered respite, welcome company and security—someone she wanted and needed when Renji faltered as her support.

She knows necessity. The strictures of duty and survival have dictated her actions when her emotions would have steered her otherwise. Is there, then, also a necessity of desire? Renji isn't as frank as he is wont to, but his words are plain enough on that part. Something he needed. Something he got from Ichigo. She bites her lip, half in thought, half in anxiety.

"If you wanna hit me, go right ahead." Renji moves closer, leaning a hand on the edge of her desk. It would be an excellent angle to punch him. "But..."

"It isn't fair," she says. "It isn't fair, but I do... understand."

The backs of his knuckles ghost over her cheek. She can't deny him the assumption of intimacy. It was granted on both sides, perhaps from the moment she took her sword from his throat in an empty hut in another world and decided to trust him. "I'm sorry it hurts you," he murmurs. "Can't say I'm sorry it happened, now that it has. That make sense to you?"

The thing that saves her is that she believes in his regard for her, believes with all of her vulnerable, quickening heart.

"Did it solve things?" She turns towards him. "You said he came to you. I assume you mean of his own initiative."

"Yeah. And yeah, it solved some things. Complicated others."

"So it seems."

"That's why I..." He waves a hand. "Kinda stormed in. Thought you might've seen him, or somethin'. I thought..."

"We are not very good at this, are we?" She huffs at her admission, roundabout as it is.

"Hell if I know. But... there's somethin' I do know." Renji squares his shoulders. "Ichigo, me—we wouldn't be here without you. That's the one thing I'll stick to."

"The same goes for me." He may be speaking in metaphor; her words as regards herself are an actuality. "You may be angry, I may be upset, but we both know it. What does Ichigo think? Why did he leave?"

Uninvited, he folds into her chair, lanky legs splayed. "It's more the rule'n the exception by now. He keeps hittin' and evadin'."

Her eyes stray to the papers that flutter at his movement. "Renji... I know this is the worst of timings, but I'll have to go soon. I'm expected. You came in quite suddenly."

"Rukia..."

"This really is important." The door stands wide open, as if beckoning someone to burst in looking for her. "I forgot for a moment, but there was a communication from..." Her tongue sticks. Renji, more than anyone, would have no reason to wish for further association with the place. "From Yellow Springs."

The chair goes clattering back as he flies to his feet.

"Calm down, it's all right!" She grabs his wrist. "It isn't him. There's a delegate. Captain Ukitake asked me to go, since I know something of the customs and the language."

Her words take their time sinking in. "Fine," he says, the atmosphere flattening rather than easing as she sought. "Gotcha."

Now he is hurt. He's worried for me, and Ichigo walked out on him... She isn't doing the exact same thing. It must still feel like a rejection that her duties cannot wait.

"You sure it's safe? I know the Captain-General's probably eager to open some sorta dialogue with them, but we've seen what they can do."

"The message comes from the commander of Phoenix Gate. He is the highest-ranking military leader east of the Tiangen mountains." She fluxes between the personal and the professional. How to separate them now? "I told Captain Ukitake you shouldn't be involved. I didn't mean to infringe, it just seemed..."

"Seemed prudent." Renji takes her hands as he sits back down, nudging her closer. "Probably a good idea. I wanna hear everythin' when you get back, you got that?" It's equal parts a placation and a command.

"Don't do that." Her throat constricts, with warmth this time.

"Look, I sure as fuck don't like it. If the Captain-General's sendin' you, he thinks you should be there. Can't gainsay that."

"I tried to skim the old records." The heap of books and scrolls covers the better part of her desk. "Soul Society has had hardly any contact with Yellow Springs for centuries. This could change many things."

"I get that. If they actually want to talk, that is. You watch yourself. That's all I'm askin'."

"I need to be there, Renji," she confesses. "It gives me a purpose. I need that, too."

"Just don't let it go to your head."

"I am not!"

"Like you can fool me. You're practically glowin' with it. It's good."

Wrapping her hands into his, she gives in to the comfort of his presence. Does he know he does that, makes a dip in the world that sends her spiralling towards him the moment she lets go? "I'll be back as soon as I can. I'll find Ichigo with you, the moment I return."

"That a promise?"

Yes. His frank question lightens her. She's learned to be wary of the soundless gaps inside herself, yet more so of the well-meaning silences that mask his concerns. Quiet festers. Words can hurt, but they cut cleaner.

His arms tense to support her as she bends forward, hands still in his, and kisses him. The awkward angle melts away as he responds after a second of hesitation. When he gasps against her mouth, then claims it again, she feels the touch unwind something in her. This is one way to tell the truth; another tiny necessity.

"I'll wait," he says at length. "Hatch a plan, do some investigation. You go and talk circles 'round 'em all."

"As long as we go together." As he releases her hands, she slips to embrace him. His shoulders are taut under her palms as he returns the hug.

"It's gonna take both of us to deal with him." Renji cups her jaw, sliding his thumb along her lower lip, making her breath catch. "Bottom line is, m'not sure I could have it any other way anymore."

A sudden, hot shudder twists down her spine as he runs a hand down her back. For a moment the diplomatic meeting is shunted aside. Maybe all the detours and hurdles are worth the destination, if they—the three of them—can continue down this path.

Rukia has stopped thinking in twos; that is the problem and the solution wrapped in one. Renji's agreement only helps to make it real.

"Isn't that what I've been saying?" she says, too soft to be breezy. "I know."

"Don't you get smart with me." She wishes she could elide the world and linger on this aching, fragile tie between them.

"I'm not." She smiles. "I have to go."

"Yeah." The next thing she knows, Renji kisses her hard and demanding, with a breathless urgency he's always kept back, and she can only let herself grip his shoulders and answer with what focus she has. "Just remember this," he murmurs against her mouth.

"I—I will." She has to push herself away. Everywhere around her there is change and motion; Renji is a pinnacle and a challenge at once, but she prefers him—them—this way. It leaves room for her to be all that she is, all that she is finding she might be. "I'll be back."

"Had better. M'not above comin' over if you take too long to make nice with the diplomatic committee."

She kisses him once more, for luck and a promise and a see-you-soon, before scooping up her notes and rushing out into the dawning day.

* * *

In her best shihakushou, Sode no Shirayuki bound in the ceremonial scabbard at her side and her braid pinned up with a jade comb, Rukia waits by the dimensional gate. Every courteous phrase and greeting she can recall is racing through her head. She is ill equipped to interpret in a diplomatic encounter, yet there are few in Seireitei who'd have even her ease with the language of Yellow Springs.

Vice-Captain Ise stands across from her, the superior officer present. Captain Ukitake elected to keep the group small and powerful enough to contain any trouble. No captains will be involved in direct contact before an assessment is made of the arrivals. The delicate lockstep of protocol and decorum is dizzying, but Rukia trusts she can stay apace of it. She closes her eyes, imagines the poise and calm of her brother addressing a guest.

Mistakes are not unacceptable. It is her intent that must be lucid and pure. "Do not begin if you mean to hesitate."

The dimensional gate links to the western border. The delegation was asked to wait there until a reception could be provided. They have come by the same path Rukia returned with Renji and Ichigo; her chest clenches at the memory. Perhaps they are here for vengeange rather than alliances. She casts a sideways look at Ise, but there is no way to request a private word. She already laid her concerns out to her captain, and promised him her aid in spite of them.

I was an outlaw. Now I am to approach them as an ally to be. There is no treaty that could demand she be delivered to the tian bin now she is in Soul Society. She is a shinigami and an officer, with the division insignia on her chest and the sheath of her sword. Her sword is at her hip, not on her back as the burden of a fugitive or soldier of fortune.

A deep buzzing sound begins in the centre of the gate frame. A wind rushes through, whipping at hair and clothing as the gathered shinigami turn towards the noise.

"Kuchiki-kun?" Vice-Captain Ise motions to her. "They will be here momentarily."

Rukia tries to remember her posture. "Yes."

"This is a delicate situation. No one here is equipped to handle it quite without flaw. I will rely on your discretion."

There were other choices. The vice-captain herself has a grasp of the written language, but has never studied its spoken counterpart. Captain Ukitake asked me, and he knew the problems that could arise. Even though late, Rukia's field report to her captain was as thorough as she could make it.

At Ise's signal, the officers fall into an orderly line. Rukia takes her place next to the vice-captain.

"Thank you, ma'am," she says low. She hears the covert meaning in Ise's words: "I understand your apprehension, but expect your best."

The outline of a person appears in the gate frame like a reflection in water, flickering into an armoured figure, the tawny sleeves of his uniform gilded by the sun. Another follows, bows bundled on their shoulders and sword-hilts laced with yellow cord, the tassels swishing with their steps. In comparison, the shinigami form an austere relief of black and white, only the emblems on their shihakushou telling seat and division to the knowing eye. Repressing a splash of dread, Rukia watches the tian bin emerge. The months since her return haven't quelled the instinct to flee. They number five, reasonable for a personal guard—or half a patrol group. Spiritual power, even banked close, thickens the air.

Vice-Captain Ise shifts, a minute ripple of nerves, when the sixth member of the party sets foot on the grass. She is in red and black, her hair combed up into an intricate coiffure that gives her face a grave cast. Under the powder on her skin, Rukia thinks she glimpses a patchwork of scarring that she doesn't remember.

Her thought freeze with the realisation. That's—

The young woman halts a respectful distance from Vice-Captain Ise before dipping into a bow. "I greet you in the name of Commander Jia of Phoenix Gate of the Tian Bin. I have come on his behalf, and on behalf of Ambassador..." The gist is clear to Rukia; it would take more willpower than she has to tear her attention from the woman.

"I am Jia Mei Xiu. I offer my heartfelt wishes for the health of your family, and yourself."

Ise is mouthing at her. The moment Mei raises her head from the greeting, she will recognise her. Why, of all the people they could have sent...

"Kuchiki-kun. I believe she cannot rise before I have answered. If you have knowledge to the contrary..." Ise's tone conceals steel.

Rukia sets a hand on her sword so only her fingertips brush the crossguard. Shirayuki breathes calm, the phantom weight of a strong flank beside her. She steps forward so that she is halfway between Mei and Ise, and begins. The words are thick, but as precise as her brother's diction. There is a pattern here that she can grasp: it is only desire and intent, but it can find root and grow if given the chance.

As Ise replies, Rukia turns to Mei. " 'I am... I thank you. I am Vice-Captain Ise Nanao of the Eighth... Division of the Gotei under Captain-General Ukitake. I welcome you to Soul Society. You may... Our laws will protect you while you are here.' " It may be a blessing custom demands Mei stay in the bow until Rukia is done. She can't imagine how she would compose herself. Losing herself in repeating others' words is a strange relief.

Then she is finally out of words. Mei straightens her back; Rukia swallows. They are surrounded by witnesses. Ise is the only one with even an idea of the circumstances where they last met.

"I also greet you, and thank you for your help." Mei smiles, straight at Rukia, breaching her position as an impersonal mediator. Her left cheek dimples oddly, as if a muscle strained to move.

Rukia must react. Ise's cool visage betrays nothing, since Mei's eye contact is elsewhere. What? What do you want? You've found Duan Zhi, risen from the dead, and now...

"My name is Jia Mei Xiu. May I ask yours, so I may mention it to the ambassador when he comes?" The phrases flow direct, simple for Rukia to understand.

Trust. Step forward. Do not hesitate.

"Please tell the ambassador that if—if he has need of my services, I will be honoured to offer them." She bows and raises sober, bright eyes back to Mei. "I serve as Captain-General Ukitake's fifth seat."

"I would like to offer you the position. Well, will you accept this considerable honour?"

"I haven't met too many girls who do, but you are extraordinary, Rukia-san."

"You'll be good now?"

"You go and talk circles 'round 'em all."

"You are my sister. This is your home."

Like warm, insistent hands on her back, a thousand possibilities whirl past her and collapse into one.

"I am Kuchiki Rukia."

* * *

<< Part Thirty: Aglow
>:> Part Thirty-Two: Sojourn

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Thirty

2009-08-30T22:00:07Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Mature (R)
In This Part: Resolutions come in different shapes. (4500 words)
The Serious Business: The sexual content depicted herein is consensual and between fictional characters who are considered and intended by the author to be over the legal age of consent.
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Thirty: Aglow

Hung on the wooden stand, she watches.

The great, blazing bird opens its beak. It will rear, and the strike will pierce her and scatter her into nothing.

Rukia closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, a billow of cloth, tan and black, fills her vision. Her rescuer grins down at her as her eyes widen at the impossible conclusion that she still draws breath.

She's raised up and shouted at, warmth of a different kind pouring through her. As another voice makes her turn her head, her heart constricts with joy as she looks down at the man at the foot of the rack.

He's alive. They're alive. The knowledge beats at her with frenetic, stubborn delight. She's frail, but this realisation invigorates rather than smothers her. She was ready to die.

There is something to live for again.

She is flung down from the stand, and she hears herself screaming with the shock of it, cut as strong arms envelop her and break her fall. They roll onto the ground, the momentum smashing through them both. She would laugh if she could find the air for it.

They are, all three, still alive.

In the next eyeblink, in the manner of a dream, her gaze trails the shining arc of a sword passing through Ichigo as if he were paper, the crimson wetness of his blood soiling the ground. He topples, broken, and she strains against a chokehold as Renji falls after him, robes soaked with his own blood, eyes vacant with pain.

The sheet is knotted around her, her hair a mess over the pillow. Rukia gathers herself; she's used to this dream in its innumerable variations. She knows where it stems, for all that she can't seem to dispel it. There is the white tower. There is the old execution hill, and a record of a trial in the lee of greater treason that led into the war. It's all in the past, even if the past blazes into life in the vulnerable moments of her rest. She will wash off the sweat and change her robe and go back to bed.

A knock on her door interrupts her ablutions. She calls for the servant to come in.

"Lady Rukia." The old woman bows. "Captain Kuchiki is..."

"Has something happened? I thought the patrols weren't due until tomorrow."

"There was a skirmish, my lady. Captain Kuchiki requested to see you."

She tells herself she only shivers with the vestigial cold the dream always leaves running through her veins. Her brother can't be... "I'll come at once."

Rukia shoos the servant away before she can offer to help dress her, and pulls on the first yukata that comes to hand. If her brother was truly hurt, the servant wouldn't have been so sedate. She is being silly and oversensitive.

Still, the rush of her anguish falling away pauses her in her tracks as she enters his rooms. The space is softly lit, a servant seated unobtrusively in the corner. Her brother is resting in his futon. She only takes the most superficial stock of the room, one she's never visited, before kneeling next to him.

"Honoured brother?"

She seems to interrupt a light sleep; his eyes focus on her too slowly. A sedative, perhaps. "Rukia."

"What happened?" The quilt is pulled up to his chest, the collar of his sleeping robe showing a wrap of bandages. His right hand, atop the covers, is likewise covered in linen dressing. Her fear wasn't unfounded then, only its intensity exaggerated.

"A brief battle. I will recover."

"Of course." She presses her lips together. Silly indeed, especially in the face of his calm. "You wished to see me? Is there... anything I can do?" She's glad she was woken for this. Injury is something no shinigami can avoid, a part of their duty, but the news couldn't have waited for morning.

"I have been told to rest for a few days," His gaze is fixated on her face, as he were reluctant to lose the contact. "The wounds are not serious."

She nods. A draft winds into the room from an open window, stirring the candles in their painted paper hoods. It seems she should say or do something more, but no ideas come. The pressure of her dream, familiar in its terror, lingers close, yet it isn't something she would mention to her brother.

"Rukia." His voice pulls her from her clinging thoughts. "There is a scroll on the second shelf from the right, bound with a blue cord. Would you?"

She fetches the scroll, shifting through the cases until her fingers touch the faded silk cord. The scroll is heavy for its small size, the paper crackling with age when she dares to uncoil one end.

"What is this?"

"Something I'd read myself," her brother says, with a trifle of rueful humour. "Would you do me a favour?"

"Mm-hm." The lanterns hide her flush of apprehension; it seems she's been allowed into some private sphere.

"The verses are numbered. Find the one marked eleven."

"This one? 'You who... who have come...' "

"Yes. My honoured grandfather used to say, 'Do not begin a poem if you mean to hesitate.' "

"Do you think it true?"

"I think it's advice, to be taken in that spirit."

She clears her throat, aware that her voice doesn't bend to a storyteller's sonorant cadence. She makes it low and thoughtful instead to suit the words.

A silence falls as she finishes. Her brother coughs, and she moves to adjust the pillow so he is more comfortable.

"She was fond of that poem," he says once the fit has passed. Rukia knows whom he means by the barely perceptible stress on the word.

"It's very sad." She rolls the scroll downward. "The... the sense of longing has a beauty of its own."

"You read it very differently." In the close circle of lantern light, his face is unfathomable. "Rukia. I cherished your sister. I adopted you into House Kuchiki on her dying wish."

"I know, Byakuya-niisama."

"This house has many doors." He draws in a breath. "You may have been taken into the Thirteenth due to the Kuchiki name, but you've excelled on your own. You aren't trammelled here, if you wish not to remain."

"Oh." She scrambles closer. "Oh, no. I mean... I've felt sad here. I've been hesitant in your company." She stumbles, but her need to speak out is greater than her sense of decorum. "I'd have felt those things no matter where I was."

"Then—" His mouth moves without sound. "Then you wish to stay?"

"I wish to stay." She lays a hand on his bandaged one. "For as long as I may."

"You are my sister. This is your home." He casts a glance at her whether to affirm his words or reassure himself that she's still there. "That will not change in the days of my life."

Smiling, she reaches to needlessly straighten the quilt over him.

"There is... another verse I'd hear. The last one on the scroll."

The scroll is frayed where the poem begins, a meticulously glued seam marking a rip in the paper. This time, she doesn't fumble as she starts reading, the lines flowing easier.

When she looks up, his eyes are shut, his breathing evening into slumber. She closes the scroll, lays it on the table, and goes to draw down the blinds so the early sun won't wake him.

* * *

Three weeks after college starts, Orihime announces her plan to visit Soul Society. Ichigo should have dropped by a long time ago, so once Chad adds his succinct agreement to her enthusiasm, there is no reasonable way to refuse. Ishida does, of course, as he does every other time Orihime earnestly tells him to join them. He gives his regards to Rukia for Ichigo to deliver.

Rukia meets them at the dimensional gate, beaming up at Chad as she greets him and hugging Orihime in a rare display of delight.

"Hey, you," Ichigo finally says as she lets Orihime go, and they find themselves face to face.

"Hello." Her scarce smile doesn't waver. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd decided to quit."

"Quit what?" he snaps, half on instinct. They fall into step ahead of Chad and Orihime. "The shinigami business?"

"Well, that as well." Her tone gives away nothing. "I suppose I was wrong."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He's too aware of their friends a few paces behind. This isn't the time or the place to have the talk they should've had a few times over—but he has no idea what would be the right circumstances. Back at home, it is marginally easier to ignore the quandary. He hasn't been able to pretend he only lives in Karakura for a few years now.

"I said I would wait, Ichigo. I will. There are, however, some limits to that promise."

Unable to answer, he averts his eyes. I know, damn it. I made this mess, or at least made it worse.

Before he can find any way to verbalise that, Rukia has turned to Chad and Orihime with an offer of dinner at the Thirteenth—the Kuchiki estate would be too stuffy for them, anyway—and the fleeting window where he could have spoken honestly is gone.

* * *

After the dinner, the others scatter across Seireitei. Orihime and Rukia disappear together, no doubt for something girly, so Ichigo doesn't even ask. Chad heads off to the Eighth with an explanation about a go match he owes. Ichigo hardly knew he played.

He's left with the whole of Seireitei before him and an utter lack of company. He could creep to the Eleventh, risk being found by Zaraki before he could find Ikkaku, and end up carted off to the Fourth on his first full day in Soul Society in almost a month.

Swishing his feet in the captain's pond, he even ponders hanging around the Thirteenth. What's wrong, anyway? It's not like I ever had trouble spending time...

He had Rukia and her antics, or at least, Renji and the often-offered tour of local taverns. Renji even worked for deflecting some of the Eleventh's homicidal impulses. Even when they were both mired in the aftermath of the war, there was the sparring, their unmixed rapport on the training ground.

"Okay," he says to himself. Pushing Zangetsu into his sash, he picks up his socks and sandals.

The sunset slashes into the streets. Ichigo wends his way through the city; he's in no hurry. Even the notion that he's going is borderline.

The gate to the Fifth is open; the shinigami on watch nods him through on sight. Being a saviour of Soul Society—and a personal friend of the acting captain—is good for something. He knocks on the door panel leading to the new captain's quarters.

As the door slides aside, he decides not to regret this. He opens his mouth and forces himself to speak. "Hey. We've got... unfinished business."

Renji backs from the doorway to allow him in. He lets his eyes circle the room; it seems more a place to crash than an actual living space. It also does a wretched job of distracting him from Renji, wary as he leans back against the closed door.

"Threats of bodily harm, somethin' like that?"

"Something like that." Ichigo sets Zangetsu down against the wall.

"Should we talk about this over tea like civilised people? Not that I have any, just got in." The outer robe of Renji's uniform is flung on the table, Zabimaru laid on top of it.

"Could you cut the crap? Humour me a second here." I'm sick of this situation, Ichigo understands. I'm sick of avoiding you, and not knowing what the hell to think. You owe me this much.

"What about?"

"What the fuck was that last time, on the way back from Rukongai?" The question spills from his mouth. "You know what I'm talking about, so don't play dumb." He'd been almost ready to deal with Renji, to yield to his teasing and admit things were not so bad, until the situation slanted too-sharply into uncharted territory.

Renji goes rigid; his reiatsu, a constant low swell of restless energy, stills. "Rather you forgot 'bout that."

"Who asked your opinion? You owe me a reason. I can take it."

"You can 'take it'?"

Indignation rises within him, but is countered by a jab of concern. "Tell me, idiot." It's more a prompt than a demand. "Whatever the hell it is. I've seen enough." I'm close enough.

Renji's hands press flat against the door. It's like he is testing a sore limb.

"Okay. Since you asked. Long story short, when the tian bin got me in Yellow Springs, we didn't... agree on my loyalties. In that, Wei..." He blinks, then goes on. "That bastard nearly took my eye."

* * *

Ichigo gasps out a half-formed oath. A heartbeat passes, two, and three, before he reaches out a cautious hand.

Renji had meant to confront the youth after his reconciliation with Rukia—or, not confront, for all that a competitive quality flavours all their byplay. They needed to stand on even ground in this. That probably was what opened his mouth, too, to shove out the truth.

Ichigo's thumb touches his nose, feathers over the eye socket. Renji resists the impulse to close his eye or to respond in any other way. A half-healed cut on Ichigo's thumb shaves against the corner of his eye, the scar chapped against vulnerable skin.

It feels like bleeding a wound, like breaching the surface after a dive.

Then Ichigo crumples the moment without thought. "Was that what you moped about the whole way back?"

Renji flinches. "Oh, fuck you, Kurosaki—"

"Yeah, you wish."

Ichigo grabs his shitagi as if to push him aside; Renji raises his own hands in instinctive defence, seizing Ichigo's robe. He feels the clutch and flow of the youth's breath under his fingers. On occasion, he wishes. It would be easier, but more is at stake here than a moment's heated fancy. For all that this may be a confrontation, it should lower barriers rather than raise them.

"And don't call me that." Ichigo doesn't realise his own control of the situation, but tries to exert it anyway. That is very him.

"What should I call ya, then?"

"Not that."

"Dumbass." Clarity wars with a slow-rising heat inside him. His stillness is equal measures challenge and surrender.

"Like you're so smart."

"Hey, I know what I want. At least I don't pretend."

That is the wrong thing to say. Ichigo balks, his face scrunching. Renji senses how he tenses up. Don't let him go. Not now. He promised Rukia, but she is far from the only reason he's going through with this. This is likely to be their last chance before one of them does irreparable damage to their—friendship, confidence, all the other things that matter.

"Listen," he says. "I wasn't yankin' your chain in Urahara's old hideout. Neither am I now. What I'm—look at me." He bows his head to find Ichigo's eye. "Look at me. There's not a damn thing about this that I haven't meant."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Try to have a conversation with you. I'm not sure what your game is, but I... I'm serious. About this. About you." And Rukia, damn it.

"Right," Ichigo says, too rough and amazed to be mocking.

Afterwards, Renji couldn't say who initiated the kiss. Ichigo hasn't improved in the meantime—hardly a surprise—but his tentativeness is eased by the lassitude and weight of the kiss. A charged curl of need spreads through Renji, but it isn't the bright flare of pin him down and fuck him senseless that he well knows. Something else enters the space between them, heavy and mesmerising.

Ichigo twists his fingers into Renji's hair, tight enough to elicit an "Ow!" from him. "Ah, sorry."

"Ease up a bit. I'm not goin' anywhere."

Ichigo scrutinises him. "That a fact?"

"You're one suspicious bastard."

Ichigo nods his head against Renji's and does not speak. Tension thrums between them. He can't help but be conscious of his own heartbeat, or of Ichigo's body inches from his own. Trust takes time. He knows.

"Renji." His name in Ichigo's low voice is an odd comfort. "That sucks, what happened with Wei, but... it's over. We're in the clear."

For once in his life, he suppresses the urge to cut in with some half-clever commentary. His throat works.

"So, I don't know what you... wanted from me." Ichigo is trying furiously to put words to something he probably only comprehends in his mind. "I figure it hurts. I figure you can't really talk about it. It's easier to turn your back and pretend. But it's also pretty fucking stupid."

Incredulous laughter breaks from him before he can contain it. "What?"

"That's what you're doing." Ichigo gives him a deadpan look. "You and me both, for that matter. 'Least I figured out it didn't work."

"Who the hell are you to..."

"Nobody," Ichigo snaps. "Except you got in my face with the whole eye thing. That makes it my business."

"An' your excellent advice is to..." It figures it would be like this with Ichigo; pushing and pulling, always with a challenge buried in the layers. "To turn around and face it? That's it?"

"I sure as hell had to." Ichigo's gaze veers to the side.

How's that for cryptic? "Fine. What are we even talkin' about anymore? Don't answer that. We kinda... digressed here at some point." He realises, again, how close they are, as if it simply hadn't occurred to either of them to step back. "I didn't mean to spook you back then. I just... lashed out. It's fine now."

Something relaxes in Ichigo's demeanour at that, even if it is a vague reassurance. "I'll live," he says, half a chuckle. "Is it just me or is there kinda too much up in the air?"

"Hell, yes."

"Funny, though. I sorta feel more clear-headed." Ichigo's fingers burrow into Renji's hair, pulling on the twine that ties back his ponytail. His throat thickens at the weight of Ichigo's hand on the nape of his neck.

"That's good," he says. "Now we've sorted this out, maybe you better sleep on it. So things don't get messy again."

"You wouldn't put me up?" It's almost a quip.

"Hmm." Renji trails a thumb down the side of Ichigo's neck, falling back into the banter because it is what he knows. "I gotta wonder how sure you are 'bout that. You've bolted on me twice. Seems a bit of a pattern."

"That was different," Ichigo says, rough. "You sorta freaked me out last time."

"You sorta came on to me like no tomorrow the time before." Renji tenses as he speaks, though he tries to keep his words light, a jibe that can be deflected by a riposte or a laugh. Even this near, there's room for doubt.

"Guess we're even then."

"Tippin' the scales again, are you?"

Defiance flickers in Ichigo's eyes. "Take a guess."

He takes a full breath; it ripples on the fringes. "Ichigo, are you—"

The sliding door jolts in its frame with a grind of wood as he falls back against it, seeking purchase, head dragged down by Ichigo's grip on the back of his neck. Then his focus stutters and narrows onto the heat of Ichigo's mouth on his own.

"Yeah," Ichigo mumbles. "I am."

* * *

Ichigo could not name the precise point where oh shit what am I doing becomes want this now.

It is, in any case, before he pushes Renji back against the door and kisses him.

He makes most of his decisions in split-second instants. This one creeps in like a tide until it's a surge that throws him forward. He has a few notions of how this should work. He tosses them aside one by one as Renji meets him, mouth on his, and then on his cheek and jaw and ear, and oh, whoa.

He kisses Renji again to distract himself from the shiver at the base of his spine. It trembles up at Renji licking slow and careful into his mouth until he groans and breaks away.

Ichigo gets his recompense in the way Renji damn near whimpers when his mouth slips on his neck: his teeth graze skin, first by accident and then on purpose. Cloth drags over his shoulders, and he lets go for long enough to let Renji yank his robes down his arms. Once free, he grabs the collar of Renji's shitagi and returns the favour. His hands sweep over the shapes of bone and muscle under Renji's skin, fingers catching on old scars.

Then he is pushed up to the wall. He'd say something, but Renji kisses him, bending him open and wanting and gasping before they have to part for lack of breath.

"Get up," Renji mutters. "This is gonna kill my neck."

"Who told you to—to be so damn tall—" Renji hoists him up, and Ichigo has to throw an arm around his shoulders and wrap a leg about his hips so as not to fall. And then he doesn't care, because the amount of warm skin on his short-circuits his thought processes. The doorframe bites into his shoulder blade. Renji's mouth and skin taste of salt. The tension in him rises steady and shuddery, gripping him hard when their mouths meet. The kiss turns deep, breathtaking, yet Ichigo wants to squirm at the lingering pace.

His feet come to the floor again. He lets his hand splay on Renji's hip, keeps his eyes shut, as if the most minute change could undo the heat and want and the undercurrent of something kinder.

"So," Renji says. "Now what?"

"You need me—to hold your hand about this?"

"No, you cheeky bastard. I'd prefer to—think of it as takin' suggestions."

"Well," he says, and it's not all boldness in his voice. "I guess you can take this as one." He pulls Renji into an artless kiss and slides his hand left.

* * *

"Thought you said I was—" If Ichigo focuses, he can almost trace the tattoo on Renji's back by texture alone "—too bony for you?" He's proud of himself for the whole sentence, and then he doesn't know what is tattoo and what sweat-smoothed skin anymore. His back jerks straight as Renji draws a fingertip down along his hipbone.

"What can I say?" The amusement is muffled, but there. "You know what a masochist I am."

"Har," Ichigo says, then "Oh, shit," in a faltering whisper. That's Renji's mouth, and his hand braced on Ichigo's hip. Renji's hair is rough-soft in his hands; his fingers, knowing and sure, tug small ragged noises from him until he has no breath for more.

He knows the one thing he'll remember afterwards. They end up on the floor at some point, Renji with his head tossed back, his right hand tangled with Ichigo's left one, keeping it there clasping the side of his face. Leaning down to kiss Renji clumsily, Ichigo feels him arch up against his own body. He strokes his fingertips over Renji's temple, in tentative arches until Renji gasps, a rasping, desperate drag of air, and tenses with release.

* * *

Shadows flow across the room as the light outside fades. Renji waffles by the window, for the breath of air or for the boneless satisfaction in him.

He sharpens when Ichigo swears at his sticking bathroom door. "Just leave it," he calls. "The frame's warped."

"Ever thought of getting it fixed?"

"Mm-hm." He turns to watch as Ichigo moves about, gathering his clothes. It's more the context than the sight itself that draws his gaze. Not that there's anything wrong with Ichigo himself, his movement fluid, his face cleared by cold water, but him, naked and loose-limbed in Renji's quarters, that is new.

"What's so interesting?" Ichigo cocks an eyebrow at him.

"You? Or maybe just the part where we had sex against my front door."

"Right." Ichigo shakes out his hakama.

Renji guffaws. "Look, don't think about it too much."

"I'm not." The sashes of the hakama claim Ichigo's attention. "I mean..."

"You are."

"Stop—stop putting words in my mouth. I didn't go, did I?"

"Point." Renji drops to sit on the floor, arms draped over his knees. "Though I was surprised you came in the first place. Not that I'm complainin', but..."

"Better not be." Ichigo crosses the room to him, poking him in the shin with the ball of his foot.

"Oi. Just tellin' it like it is. So what changed your mind?"

Ichigo halts in the middle of another mock kick. "A bit late to ask that question, don't you think?"

"What was that about lookin' your issues in the eye? If it's not plain by now I'm not gonna..." Renji can't help the sigh, although it's a gentle one. "I can guess what it is. Rather you told me yourself."

There's a pregnant pause. "Rukia did," Ichigo says. "Or at least, she made me figure out I was fed up with this shit we kept pulling on each other. I don't know how all of this is gonna work, but at least things aren't getting worse anymore. I think."

Renji shakes his head, in bemusement rather than denial. Despite making an art form out of stuffing his foot in his mouth, Ichigo has some sort of intuition working for him. Maybe he's even managed to fumble his way into a place where this can all work out.

Ichigo slumps into a sitting position, his shoulder wedged against Renji's. They slouch there back to back. "Not worse," Renji agrees. "Different, though. Think you can handle that?" Rukia's part remains unspoken, but the way Ichigo leans into him is answer enough to his immediate question.

They'll be strong enough for this to hold. At this moment, he believes it.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Nine: Sideways
>> Part Thirty-One: Threshold

A/N: The poems quoted are 'Lines' by Wang Wei and 'In the Quiet Night' by Li Bai, both Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty. They were borrowed from here.

jaina, utenatai and raynos deserve a sincere thank you for listening to me waffle, and for helping me to make up my mind. tenebris lets me steal her lines with far too much grace.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Nine

2009-08-23T13:56:25Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: A number of people deal with love and duty, and there is a meeting in the rain. (5400 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

This is for kawree, whose birthday I missed. ♥

* * *

Twenty-Nine: Sideways

A rap on the door sends echoes pounding across Renji's skull, startling him out of sleep. He eyes the ceiling; wide room, with light pouring in at an angle that suggests morning.

"Captain?"

Oh. Office. His office. Some overindustrious rookie with morning tea, calling him Captain for short. Not that he minds; Acting Captain Abarai is a mouthful.

"Mmhyeah. Leave 'em there. Thanks." He levers himself up from the futon someone had stashed in the closet. A look over the screen dividing the room reveals Hinamori's side of it still empty.

The tea banishes the stickiness of sleep and too many cups downed last night. Memory courses back by the time he's scrubbed his face and scrounged in the closet for a clean uniform.

Twice. Fuckin' twice now. Last night knots upon itself, yet one image is clear: Ichigo, his hand extended, the pressure of his fingertips against Renji's own eyebrow, and then the absence of the touch.

That makes it the second time he's fucked off. Time to start seein' a pattern here?

On his desk sits a note from Hinamori to take care of the staff meeting at eight, as she's teaching at the Academy.

You're a fool, Abarai. What good did you think that'd do? He tried to talk to Ichigo with less than his full wits about him. Their friendship thrives on amiable insults and one-upping, but the method collapsed under the weight of this new addition.

The division runs smoothly. He's screwed up the two chief aspects of his personal life since he took up the captaincy. Is this some sick either-or choice? Chase off the people dearest to you, find every professional hurdle cleared?

If not for the headache, he'd thump his head on the desk.

He'll drift through the staff meeting and miss half the discussion. He'll stamp reports and squabble with Hinamori over how much resources they can pitch into the renovations. He'll miss Rukia so badly he aches, and wonder if he'll ever talk to Ichigo again. They haunt his steps as if the world were curved around their shapes beside him.

"Captain Abarai?" The same polite voice, followed by a louder knock on the door screen. "Vice-Captain Hinamori requested that I make sure—"

"Meetin'. I know. On my way." Where are Hinamori's notes for the meeting? His badge—the emblem of an acting captain—is folded on a corner of his desk.

Of course, it isn't only Ichigo or Rukia's choice. It's his, too, no matter how much they all manage to upset and misinterpret each other.

When will you act? Neither late nor ever? The notes rest on top of his in-tray, as would be logical.

When there's not forty pages in front of me 'bout how we gotta step up Rukongai patrols, or how the recruits can't keep up 'cause they were shoved up through their last two years... He jabs the thought at himself. I tried to talk to the idiot an' got ditched again.

He shunts the matter aside in favour of looping the binding of the badge into place. There's work to be done.

* * *

Ichigo lets the café door swing shut behind him and soaks in the familiar noises from a windowside booth. This is what sanity sounds like. He's coasted through the last weeks not quite touching anything. When Tatsuki elbowed him today after school and told him to join the rest of them, he found himself amazed by the notion.

Then he realised how pathetic that made him, and agreed to come.

Tatsuki's voice rises above the drone of conversation in the café. She's launched into a hot defence of some athlete whose name Ichigo can't catch. Keigo thumps on the flimsy table in dissension; Ishida's tea cup sways in a swirl of steaming liquid over the table. Ishida lifts his gaze from the book in his lap.

"Asano. Making idle racket when people are trying to focus is one thing. This—"

"Stop fussing, Ishida." Ichigo drops his bag in the seat next to Chad, who raises a hand in greeting. Ichigo knuckles him in the shoulder. "Hi, Tatsuki."

The place is newish and low-key, without a waiter, so he fishes out his wallet to go to the counter. "You want me to grab you a new tea?" He raises an eyebrow to show the full extent of his sincerity.

"Not necessary, Kurosaki," Ishida says.

"Hey." Tatsuki winks at him before nailing Keigo with a glare. "Yeah, you'd know if you actually looked away from her tits for once."

Well, for a relative value of sanity, this is what it sounds like. Ichigo exchanges a glance with Chad, to make sure there's one rational person left here, and slinks away to get a coffee.

Tatsuki eyes his cup as he slouches into his seat. "Since when have you succumbed to coffee?"

"Since I read through half the crap for third year in four months? Plus entrance exam books?"

"You're nuts," she proclaims. "Not that that's anything new. My point still stands, Asano!"

"He's a nerdy traitor, that's what he is!" Keigo says. "How can he be gone for a whole semester and still pass?"

"Cut it out," Ichigo says, more from concern for Keigo's head—between him and Tatsuki, one of them is going to get fed up—than real annoyance. "I don't know if I passed. The college results don't come in until Monday."

"Ishida got in," Chad says. And I did."

"Whoo, surprise." Ichigo makes a disparaging noise at Ishida, who ignores him with his usual efficiency. "And hey, congrats." Chad nods, the angle of his mouth quietly satisfied.

Sipping at the coffee, Ichigo lets his elbow slide against the tabletop. Tatsuki's saying something about Kyoto, while Keigo abandons his lament of Ichigo's educational success. Truth be told, he is on pins and needles. He'll clear the year, but based on his midterm results, getting into this college may be a long shot. He doesn't feel like taking a year off or going to cram school. He can always find a job, and there's the shinigami business and all its convolutions, but...

"So you better take care of her, you got that?" Ichigo hears Chad give a sound of agreement, then Tatsuki's fingers jab deep into his cheek. "You listening, Ichigo?"

"Huh? Yeah." He sits back in the seat. "No," he admits at her dirty look. "I am now!"

She raps her fist on his shoulder. Even Ishida has put his book aside, so Ichigo's missed some important turn in the chatter.

"You look out for Orihime when I go to Kyoto, you hear me? 'Cause if you don't..."

"You—Kyoto? You got the sports education stipend thing?"

"Yeah, peabrain." She seems to be trying to shrink him out of existence with a stare. "That's what I was saying. Since I'm only gonna be home for weekends, you're gonna—"

"Watch Inoue's back. 'Course."

"You're going to the same college as Inoue-san, and the best you can manage is 'watching her back'? I'm disappointed in you, Ichigo!" Keigo brandishes his can of soda. "You could be watching her from any number of other sides."

"I'm not—you don't even know that yet!" He is not blushing. Neither is he getting involved in any discussion of Inoue's physique.

"You wanna do the honours, or will I?" Tatsuki glowers sidelong at Keigo.

"Eh, let him be." Ichigo recomposes himself. Chad has inclined towards Ishida, who is talking low to him; Ichigo can give Tatsuki his full attention. "So... you're leaving."

"If you hung out with us more, maybe you'd stay up to date with news." She sounds kind, for her.

"I do hang out with you. Every chance I get. And hey, it's Kyoto. It's not like you're going to... Borneo or something."

She smiles and kicks him under the table. Feeling a little warm and a little sad, he's trying to find some pithy follow-up when the door bangs behind them.

"Tatsuki-chan!" They turn collectively towards Inoue as she dashes in, splattering wet bootprints across the floor. "Tatsuki-chan, I did it!"

"Did what?" Tatsuki scampers onto her feet just as Inoue flings herself onto her in a joyful hug.

"I got into college!" Inoue turns to beam at the rest of them. "I'm going to be a nurse, and I wonder if they'll give me one of those outfits..."

"I said you could do it, Inoue-san." Ishida adjusts his glasses. "Congratulations."

"See? See!" Keigo gestures from behind Chad, who offers Inoue a slow smile. Ichigo watches all this unfold with detachment: most of his thought processes are occupied by The results are in?

"Good job, Orihime." Tatsuki scoots back into the booth until they both fit in. Ichigo sits up straighter. He's avoided Inoue outside of class since he... laid out the facts for her, not that they were very convincing facts. Now she sits there facing him and radiating delight.

"Yeah. Good for you, Inoue." Then his tact is overridden by inquisition. "Now's Friday. We—weren't supposed to know 'til Monday."

"No, Kurosaki-kun. It definitely was today. I saw the lists. Unless I developed a secret superpower to move through time, and accidentally walked into Monday..."

Ichigo thuds his head against Chad's shoulder. It may not be manly, but it hurts less than the table.

"I checked your results, too." Inoue rises. "You passed. I'm happy for you."

She whisks away towards the counter, and Ichigo listens to the universe grinding over onto a better, brighter course.

* * *

The group at the table dwindles: Keigo extracts a promise from the lot of them regarding a band night next week, then exits with a mumbled comment about his sister. Ishida tucks his book under his arm and takes his leave. Tatsuki has an aunt coming to dinner. As for Ichigo, Chad and Inoue are into their second round of cold drinks before he can again join in the conversation.

He passed. He's going to college. He passed.

Inoue stretches out her arms with a hum. "I should get going, too."

Nudging Ichigo to move aside, Chad stands up and shrugs into his jacket.

"You're both leaving?" Ichigo arches a brow. The chat has roamed all over, from their college to Chad's and back again, into Western actors and Ms. Ochi's purported torrid romance with the school nurse. That last part was mostly Inoue. It's been easier talking to her than he imagined.

"Getting dark," Chad says. "You don't mind company, do you, Inoue?"

"Of course not!" She crouches under the table in pursuit of a dropped glove. Ichigo catches the nuance in Chad's voice; the shortest way to Inoue's flat is through a not-so-pristine part of town.

"Guess I better come along." He heaves a mock sigh. "I'd look pretty sorry sitting here all alone."

The streets flow with melting snow in the wake of the morning's storm. They trundle along accompanied by Inoue's remarks on people, houses, a bird perched on a rooftop, a brilliant red car parked on a street corner... Chad seems to know all the right places to "hmm" and lean closer to look, or chortle so deep it's almost soundless. They don't meet with any trouble; Chad would give anyone pause, and a certain notoriety still follows Ichigo around.

They reach the river, murky beyond the sparsely lit street. Chad turns left here.

"Hey," Ichigo says. "You wanna hang out on Sunday? I gotta help at the clinic tomorrow, but..."

"Yes." Chad gives him a steady look. "See you."

"Good night, Sado-kun!" Inoue waves. "See you on Monday!"

" 'Night, Inoue." Chad's broad back recedes into the shadows between the lamps.

"So," she says. "Are you going—to your family for the night?"

"Thought I might." He doesn't feel like taking the train anymore, and Yuzu keeps his old room in an expectant shape, so he might as well oblige her.

"Then..." They're still headed the same way. He jams his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

"Yeah. I should... go with you."

"You don't have to." She looks at him squarely. "I can look after myself."

"It's not that. I—I know you can, 'course you can." He has seen her repel and dispatch Hollows with a resolute face. She could fend off drunken punks, and then she'd probably patch their bruises and prop them comfortably against a wall. He doesn't want her to. She's quirky, warm-hearted Inoue, who went through the same shit in the war as the rest of his friends, but it is over now. She's earned her flights of fancy about accidental time-shifting.

"I mean, you don't have to walk with me." Her voice is soft and controlled. "If you'd rather not."

That is when comprehension strikes him.

"Oh, shit. Look, that's not why I've been... avoiding you." He's hunching. Irritated, he draws himself straight again. "I don't hate you, or anything like that. I thought you might not wanna see me much. Things being messy."

Her head dips forward. "I know you don't. You're too good a person for that, Kurosaki-kun."

Saying that and meaning it makes you loads better a person than me. He chews on his lip. I turned you down, remember? For something I'm not even sure how to deal with.

Still, there is something he can do. He takes half a step closer. "Know something?"

Inoue raises her face, eyes full of puzzlement, mouth a scant downward curve.

"Just a thing I've noticed." He meets her gaze. "Most of my friends call me Ichigo. I kinda like it better... if you wouldn't mind."

She blinks, angles her head, and lets out a watery chuckle. With a step, she's in front of him, winding one arm about his neck in a tentative hug. He gasps, but puts an arm around her and slowly pats her shoulder until she lets go.

"Thank you. Ichigo-kun."

"No." He points a finger at her. "Heck no, we aren't in middle school anymore."

Inoue resists for a few seconds, before dissolving into laughter that even both her hands over her mouth can't keep back.

"Sorry, sorry. That—hee!—I don't even know why that was so funny."

"Don't worry. I'll live." He shrugs amiably. "But seriously, just 'Ichigo' works."

She nods, once, twice, as if ingesting this new state of affairs. "In that case... I think maybe you ought to return the favour."

"Uh-huh? Sure, I'll think about it."

Together, they walk home.

* * *

The Third Western District is a sprawl of bountiful wilderness, rounded mountains overrun with forest. The smoky blue of the clouds speaks of coming rain, but Rukia set out for a day in the field. Spring is so far along that any downpour should be mild.

In the meantime, the valley where the road ends is all hers—or rather, theirs. She chose a meadow beside a stream to serve as training ground. By now it's littered with chunks and slabs of melting ice. Shirayuki paces among the grass, her sleek, powerful form as out of place there as the remnants of Rukia's techniques.

"Once more," the bear whispers. She sounds subtly unlike in Rukia's mind.

Her sword grasped in both hands, she flows into the low stance. Her power is smooth, malleable, rising towards a shape forged of her will.

"Do not speak," Shirayuki gnarrs when she opens her mouth. "Do not call out your techniques." That is madness. The voice is a tool, an essential focus.

The next dance. She tries to impresses the pattern on her swelling power. Hakuren. Hakuren!

The ice explodes from the tip of her sword in untidy clumps that tumble every which way. It's like she is a rookie again, struggling to grasp the basics of her shikai.

"Oh, this is impossible." She pulls her hair into a tail and shakes off her shitagi, leaving only her breast bindings. Even her hakama, loose as it is, seems to hamper her steps. The air is misting with moisture.

"Not impossible. Only improbable." Shirayuki shakes herself. "Rest a while. Your concentration is faltering."

"Tell me something," Rukia says, more to divert herself from her frustration. "It's considered impolite to address one's sword-spirit aloud. What about when you address me aloud?"

"Then we are alone, and the rules are different."

"My brother was surprised to see you." If she sits a small distance away, the chill from the ice makes the air pleasantly cool. "I think... he wasn't expecting such a thing."

"Control can take many forms. Need is one of them." Circling around Rukia, Shirayuki lies down beside her. "You had need of me, and so I was called to you. That may be all that ever happens."

"Renji said something similar." A quiver steals into her voice. His work has walled him into the Fifth Division. She's seen him in passing, but one of them always shirks away on some pretext of duty. It hurts her heart to even think of their last real meeting, so she sets the thought aside yet again. "I mean, he told me he could... manifest Zabimaru long before he achieved bankai."

"My dear." Shirayuki can't speak louder than a whisper; her voice sinks into a capricious, tender breath. "You dream of great things."

"Oh! I didn't mean... not really." Even the implication staggers her. "No."

"There is time. All the time the world holds."

"Do you think so?" She wonders if their understanding of time is the same. Shirayuki is ancient, and Rukia only one in a line of shinigami chosen by her.

Still, she wants to believe Shirayuki is right. Her past is a patchwork of story, dream and recollection, but the worst gaps are seaming in. She's taken hesitant steps with her brother: they have their evening tea together almost daily now. They even converse over it. She has friends, in Seireitei and in Karakura, who share her troubles and her joys.

Ichigo asked her for time. Best as she could, she gave of it, steeling herself to patience. She waits for Ichigo; that suffices for now.

Then there is Renji, when she allows herself to dwell upon him. Otherwise, he would consume her whole concentration. Rukia flops down on top of Shirayuki, throwing her arms round the bear's neck. The musk of her fur drowns out the smell of water in the air.

"How does one live with a heart split two ways?" That has the sound of frivolous melodrama, but Shirayuki is already privy to her thoughts. "I'm furious with him, then with myself for being so."

"I do not suppose—" Shirayuki yawns, hugely "—you would like me to consult Zabimaru in this matter?"

"Heaven, no! Ah, I mean..."

The bear's flanks thrum with laughter. "You are so young."

"I'll thank you not to press that advantage!" She rolls over, Shirayuki a lumpy, but comfortable cushion under her back. "I apologise. This just... I'm not sure what to do."

"Matters of your heart aren't quite my province," Shirayuki hums. "Avoidance did not work in your favour the last time."

"He said he... he wanted..." Me, whispers her heart like a petulant child.

"You believed him."

"I suppose so", she says, more breezily then she feels.

"It was comfortable, having him close."

"Well, yes."

"And he never asked you for more than you gave without even thinking."

"What?"

"Well, a stolen kiss on the battlefield hardly counts. Mortal peril is a condition unto itself." Shirayuki shifts languorously beneath her.

She buries her face in her hands. "Shirayuki, please!"

"And what about Zangetsu's young man?" the bear murmurs.

"Have pity." Rukia slaps her flank with an open palm. "I wish I had some sage words to set things right. I don't."

"It is enough to have one word, to set one thing right, Rukia. You could always start with that one over there." Raising her head, Shirayuki looks straight ahead. "Though he has little in the way of manners."

Rukia blinks.

She has languished, her senses at a lull. A susurrus of reiatsu stirs the sound-colour-textures of the landscape around her. She zeroes in on it, flinching up onto her feet.

Renji has stopped some way off. Shirayuki's presence is a damper. In its way, one's manifested sword-spirit is a thing more intimate than nakedness, a sight shared only by choice. In spite of that, he's watching her across the meadow.

"How..." You should have told me!

Oh, I do not think so. Stretching her back, Shirayuki begins to blur away. Consider this an opportunity.

Oh, oh, don't you dare! I should—

With a rumbling snort, Shirayuki curls out of sight, out of being, back inside her. She's left staring at Renji as he closes the distance between them to a few short steps.

"I—I didn't think I'd find you here," he says. "Just thought I should try."

In that instant, it begins to rain.

* * *

Rukia remains still. The pouring water plasters her hair to her head. Renji breathes easier for the exit of her sword-spirit, for all that he still needs to bear her gaze. His hakama and the sleeveless robe he picked as a concession to the heat are soaking through.

"Let's get out of the rain." She points at the trees bowed over the nearby stream. Mutely he follows her as she darts under their leafy cover. The weeping willows shelter a still pool in the creek, its surface dappled by raindrops where the foliage doesn't reach. After spreading her wet uniform tops on the roots of a willow, she finds a seat next to them. Renji more tumbles down on a rock sloping into the water.

"Look. I, ah, left a drill to come here. It just... hit me." He slants a look up at her before he loses his nerve. "We can't do the same damn things wrong all over again."

She takes a long moment to simply sit there in silence. "I... I know. From what I recall, it hurt a great deal." She sounds soft, distant. "I had to learn to live without you."

His heart misses a beat and slams into the next with twice the force. "You mean..." No. He will not be rendered speechless a second time. Shifting forward, he plants his hands on either side of her on the root.

Her face twists with astonishment. He doesn't leave her a window to speak.

"Here's the thing, Rukia." He draws in a breath. "I want this to stop. We're pretendin' nothin's wrong, or at least that we're somehow fuckin' fine with what happened. I'm not gonna lose you again. Not unless I hear it from your own mouth."

"Renji—" She has to stare up into his face. They're very close, her eyes large, damp lashes sticking together. "Renji, I... no. I only..."

"Damn." He lets his head dip. "I don't even know what I'm sayin'. I think I was tryin' to go easy on you. Thought I had to protect you, but..."

Her fingertips on his mouth cut him off, rain-chilled skin to skin. "Let me say my part. Please."

"Uh, sure." She can still disarm him with only a touch.

"Don't say anything until I'm done. I need to put this in order."

A chaff of laughter is all the sign he gives of his agreement. His spine is stiff, dread and warmth coursing inside him.

"I must have caused you undue pain, leaving like that." Her eyes flutter to him, then down again. "It seemed sensible then. Running kept me safe when I was alone, in Yellow Springs, but... I don't need to be kept safe from you, do I?"

Yeah, Rukia. You got it. His lips part, to tell her that he understands, that he's turned the same thought over in his head for weeks, only to have her hush him with another press of a finger.

"It puzzled so much. How much you risked to come find me. I believe I understand now."

"You do?" There was a time when the implication in her words would have left him giddy. He regards her, aware of each of his own breaths, shallow, wondering.

"Yes. And I'm so—"

"Hey." He leans in. "Let's change the rules a bit. Me next." Her glower is shot through with both laughter and hesitation, as if she didn't know which face to don. He continues, knowing the moment is precious. "I'm sorry, Rukia. That's one thing I came to say. But more'n that, you were right. I wasn't helpin' you by... tryin' to stay away 'cause it was the right thing to do."

"I never wanted you to! I can never be certain how things were... before, but I know my own mind. I can't stay convalescent forever."

" 'Course not."

"I mean it, Renji. I have a life to live." The line of her jaw is firm, even though her voice is hushed. "That is what I've been thinking. Among other things."

"Such as?" It's an indulgence to push his fingers into her hair and comb it back from her temples.

"Such as, about you. I'm not about to let go now."

"All right." That is all he dares to say. A shiver ripples down his spine that has nothing to do with the faint chill from the rain.

"And you?"

"Mm." It seems to be his move. "Might have to loosen my hold," he says, thickly. "It took damn near losin' you, for good no less, to bring you back to me last time. So when you first vanish and then return from the dead... Makes a man count his blessings, ya know?"

"I can imagine." Her cheeks flush.

"Then... if I promise I won't try an' smother you, will you not die on me 'nother time?" They may be the gentlest words he's ever spoken.

"No," Rukia whispers. "Yes. Oh, you're absolutely maddening." At that, she is in his arms, her hands folded over the back of his neck and her knees poking into his hips. He almost falls back, bracing them both as she rests her face against his throat.

"I know, I know." The heat of her skin seeps through their wet clothes. "I'm workin' on it."

"I suppose I have no choice but to keep you. You worrywart."

"Always, when it's you," he says, no confession at all.

"And you fool." Her arms wrap around his back, strong, narrow hands fist in his kimono, until she's flush to him.

"Always, for you." Renji chortles, trying to keep from sinking into her closeness. "There's somethin' you should know."

"What is it?"

Is it always this way? His feelings have been plain to everyone close to him but her. He even admitted them to Ichigo, one night on the journey that seems both worlds away and near enough to touch.

"I tried to let you go once. That failed fuckin' miserably. But it's not lettin' you go I can't handle, it's losin' you." He closes his eyes. "Rukia, I..."

Her back goes taut in the circle of his arms. "Wait."

Blinking, juddered out of focus, he watches her pull back. "Wait. You can't yet. There's more."

"What?" He musters his wits. "All right. Tell me." Next to his lingering hand on her side, her heart skitters almost to the tempo of his own.

"I know what you were going to say. I believe it."

Believe, not return or feel the same. Whatever else, this needs to be a clean cut. Maybe she only ever wanted his companionship and friendship. He must untangle the knots around at least one friend today. If it is to be her, and if she is to remain so and only so, he'll see it through no matter the hurt. He hums for her to continue.

"There is a... complication." Rukia sidles out of his hold and kneels on the tree root. "Ichigo."

A hundred possibilities flare in his mind. "Ichigo? What about—"

"Perhaps 'complication' isn't the right word." She twists her hair around her fingers. "Still, don't you think if you or I were to make certain... admissions, it would concern him, too?"

He's been in turns trepidant, hopeful, resigned, overwhelmed during this conversation. He finds himself staring dumbstruck at Rukia. All of his attention executes a neat inward spiral towards her words.

"Renji?" Her chin rises with familiar poise. "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah. I heard you."

"What do you think then?"

"I think I don't have a damn clue what's goin' on anymore," he breathes.

"I can only say what I know," she says after a pause. "I know you both searched for me, found me, saved me. We all did those things for each other. I don't know if my heart is split in two, or united in some sense I never considered before, but..." Her hands twine together, come apart, in a ball of anxiety in her lap. Then she fists them on her knees. "I can make a choice. It cannot be between you and him."

He lays a hand over her curled, tense one. This what you tried to tell me, Ichigo, after the spar? That it's not only about Rukia, hasn't been for a long time. Maybe he should have seen this possibility. It's been clear enough in his own mind, when he's had the guts to stare right at it.

"I'm not..." After all this time, the years and decades of chasing and yearning, he had her for himself for a few heartbeats, but even when he did, it wasn't what mattered anymore. "I'm not gonna ask you to."

An outlet of breath deflates her; she tilts sideways into him. They're sitting shoulder to upper arm, each facing the opposite way. "Then—what?"

"A couple things." He is making this up as he goes. "Ichigo and I... gotta talk, or beat each other black an' blue, or somethin'." Cold coils in his belly at that prospect, regardless of Rukia's crisp, gentle presence.

"He seems to owe discussion all around."

"You don't know half of it." He tries to banish the pressure of precisely what went wrong during his last meeting with Ichigo. Somehow, he must explain, but there's no need to burden Rukia with it. The wrong done to him is paid back, only the inner wound remains. "I'll... deal with it."

"What is the other thing?" Perhaps she hears the darkness in his voice; a prod into his arm accompanies the question.

"Oh, yeah." Renji gives a laugh. He should tell her once, and the knowledge disperses his baleful thoughts. "Just so you know. I love you."

The patter of the rain continues. Her hair sweeps along his shoulder as she lifts her face towards him. Her free hand clasps the side of his neck. "Bend."

"Not sure that answer's in the script—" The quip comes automatically, never completed as she kisses him, open-mouthed, heady, resolute. Her fingers fold through his and grip fast, as if she were trying to make up for the small contact with sheer force.

"It is the answer you'll get," she sighs when they separate.

"I'll take it." He smiles. "We still need a few more, right? Let's not get stuck on this one when it's a done deal."

"Aren't you confident?" Following a desire, he pulls her into his arms again in a tangle of limbs and damp hair. "We aren't done yet."

"I know." His heart is too full, yet there's room there waiting for another. "First moment I can steal, I'll talk to him. I'm already away without leave, remember?"

Her cheek smushed against his chest, she cuckles. "I'll forgive you a few more minutes. Then we'll go back."

"You got it," he says against the top of her head. "Figure we've earned ten."

"Perhaps."

How long they sit there under the sound of the rain, he doesn't count.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Eight: Ember
>> Part Thirty: Aglow

Musical Interlude # I've Lost Count, But What the Hey: A couple of double tracks again. First Snow wasn't mentioned in Part 25, but it's integral to the cemetery scene in my head.

Part 25: Clint Mansell: First Snow (The cemetery) | click
Part 25: Something Corporate: As You Sleep (Rukia and Renji) | click
Part 26: Suzanne Vega: Night Vision (Ichigo and Rukia) | click
Part 27: Yuki Kajiura: When the Grief Lets You Go (The Kuchiki siblings) | click
Part 27: Carpark North: I and You (Renji and Ichigo) | click
Part 28: Kazu Matsui: Talking With Rice Spirit (A night-time road) | click
Part 29: Enigma: In the Shadow, In the Light (Coming together) | click

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Eight

2009-08-08T08:26:55Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: Many things move beneath the surface. (4400 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Twenty-Eight: Ember

The rock garden behind the main offices of the Fifth is a prime place for reflection.

Not that Renji ever was the meditative type, his options for avoiding thought just have grown scarce recently. The division keeps him busy—meetings, paperwork, training, patrolling, renovation, bureaucratic wrangling, the list runs longer than he cares to guess—and yet the everyday concerns seem transient, intangible in comparison with his personal impasses. These days Hinamori embodies efficiency, as if she'd only been waiting for the chance to show her merit again. He remains thankful for her zeal, both for her sake and that of the long-neglected division.

He's trod a circular depression into the sand of the garden with his pacing around the central cluster of rocks. The luminous heat of the day scintillates through the trees. The orderly beauty of the place isn't doing much to soothe him today.

Rukia petrifies him with indecision. He can no longer simply make light of things when he crosses paths with Ichigo. The division is going to go over budget this month, but he can probably request more funds due to the rebuilding...

He walks in circles. Where's the way out?

Rukia wants nothing to do with him. He can't face her. He was sinking into the warm, unfathomable possibility that in time they might repair—and more than repair—their friendship, once he had the captaincy. Once she was healed and ready to face the world again. He was content to wait, but now waiting won't do him a lick of good.

Then there's Ichigo, and his thoughts slip away like water beads on oil. The sand shifts under his bare feet and slithers between his toes, then puffs up as he lets himself fall onto his back in it. The particular mixture of camaraderie, trust and desire wound around the youth in his mind boggles him. This isn't about laying Rukia's life or his own into Ichigo's hands; friendly rivalry and brothers in arms play only side parts in this.

"What the hell's wrong with me?" His words float up towards the foliage, glittering green-gold in the sunlight.

It's a perfect garden. He wants to go kick over every last one of the harmoniously placed stones. It would be macabrely appropriate if they were instead arranged for the purpose of creating a sound mindfuck. He might not put it past Aizen for organise such a last laugh at the expense of his potential successor.

He wipes his hands across his face with a groan.

The irony is that he knows the answer to his own question. Having had eyes for only one person for the last half a decade doesn't mean he's forgotten how it feels to have someone new stir you.

"Abarai-kun?" A door scuffs aside as Hinamori comes to the veranda. "What are you doing?"

He lifts himself up onto his hands. "Oh, hey, Vice-Captain." He adds the title just to see her take it without flinching, with a slight smile ready to turn curt if he doesn't promptly explain his starfish imitation. "Just doin' some captainly thinkin'. What's up?"

"First, I might ask where your socks are. There's sand in your hair." Coming up to him, she shakes his short ponytail. Her own braid is now wound around her head in a more utilitarian style, but he hasn't seen her wear her hair in the cloth-wrapped bun since she returned on duty.

"Meditation's better done barefoot." He crosses his ankles. "Did ya need somethin'?"

"No." She crouches down next to him. "Except perhaps to know what is wrong with you."

"M'fine, Hinamori."

"Something tells me that's not quite true. It might be the several years I spent watching you sit lovelorn in shady corners of the Academy."

"Oi." Hinamori is so old a friend that he grants her certain liberties: pointing out when he's being a jerk or a fool belongs in the category. It doesn't mean it wouldn't sting that she's so close to the bull's-eye.

"I was right, then." Lowering her eyes, she is silent for a bit. "I haven't seen Kuchiki-san around much. I don't... want to meddle, but don't you think it has been long enough?"

He nearly tells Hinamori she's got it wrong. This is not like their first, miserable parting; he only wanted to keep things simpler for Rukia. The noble families simmer with intrigue, and something so subtle as a rumour can tip the pot.

I just tried to protect her. He can defend her from anything a sword can deflect. He has little idea how he'd fight the battles waged in implication and intimation among the aristocracy; the best he can do is to make sure she isn't smeared with the stigma of associating with her family's lessers.

That was the whole point. If he is a captain, his low birth won't matter. He'll have proven his worth once and for all. Perhaps, she would've waited for him.

"That's not... really what happened. I put somethin' I meant well in the wrong way, and..."

"You had a misunderstanding, then." She nods. "I wouldn't ask, only this is beginning to affect your work. I don't think I've had to fix that many spelling errors in your writing since I proofread your Academy reports."

"Hey. Pretty calligraphy's not in real high demand as Rukongai survival skills go."

"Oh, I'm aware. You told me that often enough, back in the Academy." When she chuckles, he feels some of his dark mood lifting. It's such an uncomplicated pleasure to see her laugh. The look of a wounded bird struggling to fly is flaking away from her, day to day. He still hovers, sometimes, for all that a captain should not coddle his second-in-command.

Isn't that what you were doin' to Rukia, too? says a tiny, piercing voice. Puttin' her in a glass jar, tryin' to keep her untouched?

He lets his head drop against the back of his hand. "I'll be right in, okay? Would you mind givin' me a minute?"

"Of course not. I was actually—are you free tonight? Kira-kun and I thought we would... If you'd like to join us."

An incredulous laugh bursts from his mouth as a fresh realisation banishes the one just before. "You two—staged an intervention, for old times' sake? Fuck, Hinamori, don't tell me I've been that pathetic."

Smoothing her hakama, she stands up. "Maybe I should let you wonder about that. Consider it a small nudge. It could be we just miss you."

"Okay. Guess I'll salve my pride with that last option."

This ruminating session seems to only have fed his problems, yet for the first time, it feels worth the trouble. The circle has been pulled outward onto a new course.

"Be at the old place at eight." Hinamori taps the crown of his head. "We'll be paying, this time."

"D'you hafta make that sound so ominous?"

"How else will I make sure you'll come? No dark corners, Abarai-kun. There are too many of those in our lives even if we don't seek them out."

"I hear you." His voice falls without his intention. "I hear you."

After a while, he leaves the garden and some of his sombre ruminations to follow after her.

The old haunt is still hidden between the weaver's shop and the mask maker's emporium of wonders in the Sixth Southern. The chilled tea of roasted barley tastes sweeter than he recalled, and the sake is still as subtle and savoury as it was. Kira matches him toast for toast until they both lose count. Hinamori walks him home when dawn finally prises open the somnolent blues of the eastern sky.

He sleeps long into the afternoon, better than he has in weeks.

* * *

If her brother isn't prepared for her knock on his study door, Rukia would never guess it. She bows a little deeper than is necessary for respect, and waits for him to close the book in his lap before speaking. "Good evening. I hope I haven't disturbed you."

"I am finished for the day." Not a single document is askew in the pile on the corner of his writing table. The burnished wooden box of his writing tools sits next to it, perfect as a still life.

"Then I'd ask for a moment of your time."

"I was about to head out. Would you walk with me?" It seems like such a simple question, and so unlike her brother.

Rukia only nods. "As you wish, niisama."

"This is not an order, Rukia. It is a request." He rises in a heavy whisper of silk and linen, towering over her as always.

"It would be my pleasure," she corrects herself.

"Then let us go."

The gardens are wide enough to get lost in. She tries to keep to his sedate, unchanging pace. They walk in silence until he stops atop a bluff, covered by sprawling trees of night-blossoming plum. The sweet fragrance hangs in the air.

"We should linger for a while. The view of the moonrise is particularly pleasing here."

They do. The moon, a disc of corn yellow drifting over the horizon, is indeed magnificent. The hilltop offers an unobstructed view of the sky as the stars come out one after the other. Seen so far away, the lights of Seireitei are mere strings of golden light, cast in the longs coils of the streets over the dark landscape.

"Excuse my curiosity..." she begins. "Is this... something that you enjoy? I don't wish to burden you with idle questions, but..."

"Rukia," he says. "Yes, it is. I find the twilight a very calming time."

"I do as well. It's beautiful here." She had news that justified requesting his attention. The inquiry for her company threw her off balance. They don't see each other outside her training sessions and the rare meal taken together, in the high-ceilinged dining room where there is too much space for the stilted conversation to fill.

"You wished to speak to me," he says then. It's the opening she needs.

"Yes." She straightens her back, bowing her head. "I've been granted a seat by Captain-General Ukitake. The fifth one. I have accepted."

"Good. You will perform your duties as befits a Kuchiki."

"Yes, niisama."

"I expect regular reports of your progress." There is a fractional pause. "That is all."

On a sudden resolution, she turns to her brother. "There's something more I would say. Forgive me for being so forward, but I feel I cannot... that is, I would rather not stay silent."

"Speak then."

"I've caused many burdens for you after... after my return. You've asked little of me in return, and I feel they are debts I can't repay, given my own present inadequacies. So, I would ask for your forgiv..."

"Stop." He holds up a hand in warding. "I do not need to hear this."

"Of course. I apologise," Rukia manages. She's kept back the tears throughout the loss of her memory, the shock of her return, the strangeness of her home. Now her vision mists. "I'll leave you then."

"I did not tell you to go, Rukia." Something twists in her stomach, but obedience to his placid voice is ingrained in her. Her hands tremble; she conceals them in the folds of her hakama.

"Listen now," her brother says. "I, also, have words for you."

She remains rooted on her spot, amazed, fearful, listening to some nuance of his tone she perhaps only imagined.

"I once lost someone who meant a great deal to me. You have heard this account once, but I... am aware of your difficulty in remembering." He pauses. "One does not wish to experience such a loss again."

"Yes." She has to blink again.

"I am fortunate. I have averted this."

Rukia is thankful for the darkness that hides the tears. They no longer seem to stop despite all her efforts to will them to. "I... am glad, then." She turns in place, her feet unsteady.

A hand brushes her upper arm. It isn't that the movement is misplaced or careless, but tentative. She looks up. He crouches down and sets his hands on her shoulders. The near subliminal scents of sandalwood, ink and tea waft from him.

She wipes ineffectually at her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry, they... they seem... they won't stop, I—"

"Rukia," Byakuya almost chides her, but the word is gentle. "Little sister." His gaze is fixed somewhere past her. His hand rests against her upper back.

Breath by shivering breath, Rukia leans into her brother's embrace. Her hands curl into the collar of his haori, and then she clings to this one steadfast point in the world. Still and silent, he holds her and lets her finally cry.

* * *

In the evening after the last entrance exam, Ichigo opens a shaky door to Soul Society and nicely asks Rukia if he can use the Thirteenth's training grounds. She takes one glance at a schedule, nods and shoos him out of the office. Recognising her in full Fifth Seat Kuchiki mode, he insults her summarily for a thank-you, then beats a retreat.

He works through every sword form he knows and a few he makes up on the spot, and then flops down onto the field, still itching with nervous energy. He knows the slow uncoiling of lengthy stress. He needs a more substantial opponent than practice targets. But Rukia is busy, and an open question hangs between them that will intrude the moment she drops her Officer of the Month face.

His try at closing the question with Renji backfired like one of Shiba Kuukaku's end-of-war specials.

The Eleventh exists for these times.

"What you need is a good smackdown," Ikkaku says, his grin broad, when Ichigo walks in. "Too bad the Captain's out."

"You'll do," he replies. "Out back, now."

Then they breathe dust and spit blood onto the sands, until exhaustion and the heat drive them into shade. Ikkaku is a fine sparring partner, not quite as attuned to Ichigo's moves as Renji and therefore much easier to catch by surprise, but his staying power is equal to Ichigo's own.

"Figure I owe ya a round for this." Careless of his roughed-up uniform, Ikkaku sits up. "Wanna cash in the old promise? It's gonna be outdated soon if my memory serves."

"Ah, sure." He can't recall if there was alcohol involved in the gift Ikkaku accorded him last year, but if this is how much physical exertion can lift his spirits, he wouldn't mind a few more steps. "Where to?"

"Somewhere that's gonna wipe that scowl off your face. Meet me out front in ten."

Straightening himself out as best he can, Ichigo obliges. The evening is melting into night. They head off into Rukongai, the streets of Seireitei falling away into roads and cluttered alleys where people huddle on humble verandas. This close to the city, life is relatively peaceful—or, in the minimum, two armed and still-ragged shinigami are given a berth rather than tested for sport.

The winehouses seem to swim past until they cut short at the fourth one; Ikkaku seems as restless as Ichigo, and none of the common rooms hold his fancy for long. The rice wine seems to make him rambling rather than strung, more words pouring from him than Ichigo's ever heard him speak in one go.

"What're we looking for?" he asks at length, as they amble down another twisting alley.

"A reason to stay," Ikkaku says. The vicinity is rich with noise spilling from doorways and smoke from warm, scarlet lanterns hung on the corners of buildings and beside porches. The street thrives even at this hour, the nooks of it swimming with whispered conversation.

"So—this is it?"

"Ease up, Ichigo." Ikkaku's mouth is a sardonic curl. "A couple more drinks oughta take care of your problem."

Ichigo shuts his mouth before he can protest. This is the last thing he needs: whatever Ikkaku has decided will cure his mood, a head-first toss into a red lights district is on the lower end of the probability scale. Maybe he should be glad it seems—he thinks—to be one where the business is conducted indoors.

A slap on his back ushers him inside the next tavern. "Hey, now. Nobody here's gonna ravish ya 'less you ask for it. A few districts further south an' then we'll talk..."

"Let's not," he manages before freezing in his tracks. The places they've visited blur in his memory, since he's felt obligated to taste from the cups Ikkaku's plonked in front of him. The room ahead seems familiar—then he realises it's not the space, but the sense of it, a wash of tart mornings and hoarfrost after the night, veiled in approaching cold...

It smells of the open road, and then the other part connects. This reiatsu, even slurred, is unmistakeable. Ikkaku is making his way through the crowded space towards a table on the far side of the common room. Two people sit at it, one with a fall of fair hair over his face, the other's red mane bound back with a scarf.

Fuck, no.

"This'll do for a goal," Ikkaku calls. "C'mon, greenhorn, let's 'least get some friendly words in if you ain't for the women."

Ichigo has no recourse but to walk, panic climbing in his throat, towards Kira and Renji's table.

* * *

In the end, Ichigo is relieved Renji's old friend is there. He hardly knows Kira, but the man demonstrates himself a balancing influence. While Renji and Ikkaku uncork another jar and tumble into an impromptu drinking contest, Kira is willing to sidle over to Ichigo's half of the table and talk, in a level, muted voice, about this and that, the Gotei and its daily happenings, how he came to know Renji—apparently Renji has made crashing into his future friends, one way or another, into a form of art. It's idle chatter, but it keeps Ichigo's mind occupied.

When Kira leaves, with apologies, around midnight, Ichigo has to wonder why he doesn't exit in his wake. He could follow his nose back to Seireitei, and he's crashed at the Thirteenth before.

It's very late when Ikkaku rises, leaving an array of cups. " 'Kay, m' off to my next stop. Either of you comin'? Ichigo?"

"He's too pretty for Rukongai's ladies o' the night." Renji fiddles with his sake dish. "They'd get jealous."

"You wanna see how pretty you'd be with my fist in your face, Abarai?"

"Advance warnin', huh? You're gettin' soft."

"Fine, I'll leave ya old marrieds to find your own way home. 'Night." Ikkaku saunters towards the door.

The silence stretches. Ichigo considers abandoning Renji to the tender mercies of the Twentieth Southern's nightlife, when the man raises himself to his feet. He kicks away his chair and ends up in a tentative balance. "Think I'll head on back."

A glance around the tavern divulges no reasons to stay, so Ichigo stalks after Renji to claim his sword from the doorman.

The night is growing old, the moon scudding in and out of cloud cover. A heavy dew drapes the ground; the chill strokes away the blur over his senses. He isn't drunk, but the cumulation of cautious sips along the night has set off a buzz in his brain, half pleasant, half awkward. His shunpo hobbles—a boulder pounces in front of him from where it stood safely by the road. He flexes his stubbed toes.

"Take it easy." Renji comes out of shunpo with a stagger. "Lots o' night left. Walkin' might be a better idea."

"I should just let the street thugs eat you." That's it; he's only tagging alongside Renji out of a misguided sense of duty. They aren't too far out in Rukongai, though it seems that every district has its wild places, steeped in local legend.

"Ichigo," Renji drawls, " 'm an Inuzuri alley punk. This's the Fifteenth Southern. Or thereabouts, anyway."

"I've seen your street smarts. Spent a few months on the road with you. You got us run off one village, lost your sword in that bet..." He closes his mouth with a click.

Renji only grunts. "The mob was half your fault. An' I'm a Gotei captain, did I mention that bit?"

"Acting captain."

"Details, schmetails."

"Well, yeah. It's not like I care 'bout your rank," he mumbles, voice gone soft of its own accord. It has occurred to him that the distance between them owes a lot to Renji's recent promotion. Captains are even less free than fresh fifth seats to steal to the living world at their whim.

Renji's gone quiet. He throws a cautious glance at his friend.

Not so long ago, he spent every waking moment with Renji, to the point that whenever sticking together wasn't a survival measure—whenever they hit habitation—they'd break away from each other just to breathe alone.

It was an easy way of being. He misses it; not the loneliness, the search, being on the road and on the run, but the candid companionship that lived between them.

They have barely seen each other since the... training incident. Neither has even mentioned sparring, in what scarce free time they have.

The night seems to sweep away the responsibilities of daylight hours. The fires of the next alley blink through the trees, piercing the illusion that they are the only living—or dead—souls within miles. To his spirit-sight, the landscape undulates with downy colours, the subdued hues of slumber.

"Almost feels like old times," Renji echoes his thoughts.

"Mm-hm." He kicks a stray pebble into the roadside. "It does. I thought we weren't gonna do that again, though, the whole search and rescue."

"We aren't. Doesn't mean we couldn't reminisce, does it?"

Ichigo feels his steps slow as he tries to grasp the complexities of Renji's expression; curiosity and nostalgia pierce the lassitude brought on by the wine. "Where's this trip down the memory lane lead?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Renji says. "Since we seem to be thinkin' along the same lines."

"I didn't start this."

Renji lets out an incredulous burst of laughter. "From where I'm standin', you sure as hell did, Ichigo."

"I didn't start the topic."

"Haven't had much chance to open any topics with ya lately." Renji's dry tone veils the accusation, if barely. He must be more sober than he appears, to press the matter.

No, 'cause I've done my damnedest not to run into you. Ichigo fumbles about, grabs the first ready excuse. "There's this thing called school that I have. I'm still handling the Hollows in Karakura, too."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm runnin' a division, and I have to convince 'em I'm doin' a decent job. That's got nothin' to do with this."

Ichigo is aware of Renji with his every sense—the angle of his jaw as he cants his head in a challenge, the smell of rice wine and candle smoke clinging to him—and he can't seem to catch his breath. He shifts back, then curses himself for it.

" 'This'?" he tries to mimic Renji's intonation.

"Don't be dumb."

"Yeah, I'm working on the mind-reading." He doesn't need telepathy to figure this out. Something happened between them that made things irreparably different, and the certainty that carried him through before has crumbled. Renji expects an answer. Ichigo wishes he knew the question. He's always known what he wants, but the wanting has never frightened him before.

"Look," Renji says. "It's not the end of the world. M'not so sure I even mind your bein' dumb. It's what you are; can't ask the tiger to change his stripes..." The joke is old, the teasing familiar. Ichigo feels his shoulders twitch with laughter instead of tension.

"Eh, I'm pretty sure I outstrip your mental prowess right now, if the amount of sake's anything to go by." With a scant grin, he knocks his knuckles against Renji's right temple.

Renji coils away. In the next instant, his hand slams around Ichigo's throat; he staggers back. Renji's right eye is squeezed shut, his facial muscles fluttering as he glares at Ichigo.

"Don't do that. Ever." He releases his hold, but the grip of his gaze is twice as merciless. If not for the sheer anguish he exudes, he would already have a not-so-subtle foot in his face. Ichigo touches his bruising neck.

"What're you doing?" His voice cracks from more than the sudden stranglehold. "Gimme one good reason—"

"Don't touch the goddamn eye." Under Renji's dark timbre, a spark of lucidity burns.

"Not. Good enough."

"End of discussion, Kurosaki."

* * *

Every detail is a knife's edge. Renji's breath tears in and out of his lungs. The soft darkness shivers on his skin in a thousand dancing needle-pricks.

Ichigo stands an arm's reach away staring daggers at him. In a neat flip, the situation reversed itself. Now he's the one holding back truths he has no desire to face.

"Like hell it is! What is wrong with you?"

You couldn't understand. Renji wipes at his cheek and finds no blood on his skin, nothing blurring his vision.

If you're lucky, you never will.

"You really wanna know?"

"No, I'm just making small talk!" Ichigo snarls. "I should kick you miserable ass!"

"You wanna hit me so badly—" Renji cuts into his tirade, on an impulsive resolution. His jaw quivering with tension, he grabs Ichigo's hand and presses it on his own temple, against the pain he only imagines. "Go on. Wide open."

"What's this now?" Ichigo's hand clenches halfway. Renji has to quell a shudder at the blunt nails scratching his skin. "Some kinda game?"

It is: a game of phantoms, and pain and memory, to be won with the one thing that can cleanse the fear stagnating in him. He keeps starting at shadows, lashing back at people he—and the fact crystallises only now—would never want to drive away.

Neither of them moves. Ichigo's question hangs in the air.

Renji closes his eyes. His mouth feels swollen, unfit to form words, like he's forgotten the shape of language.

He blinks at a ripple of reiatsu right before him. The road is empty, his eye untouched. Ichigo is gone.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Seven: Graceless
>> Part Twenty-Nine: Sideways

Heartfelt thanks to utenatai for saving this chapter with insightful beta. A tip of the hat to raynos for steering me the right way.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Seven

2009-07-28T22:51:40Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: Talking does not solve much. (3600 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Twenty-Seven: Graceless

Ichigo takes care to lounge in the library stacks, so that the majority of the handicrafts club members pay him no heed on their way out. Inoue is the club vice-president this year; she leaves last. He waits for the last clutch of chattering girls to pass into the stairs.

"Hello?" Inoue is leaning into the classroom when he ventures out of the library. "Anyone still here? I'm locking the door now!"

"Hey, Inoue!" He takes longer strides to reach her.

She turns, surprised. The door locks with a click. "Kurosaki-kun? What is it? Is there a Hollow?" Her hand brushes one of her hairpins. "Not that you'd need any help, I—"

She seems skittish, and now he knows why. The corridor around them is empty. It makes a wealth of a difference.

"No, no Hollow. Everything's fine." He slings his school bag over his shoulder. "Just... d'you mind if I walk you home?" The words fall out in a rush. "I mean, just walk, we've sorta got the same way—now that we've both moved again."

"I don't mind." She smiles. "Let's go before it rains. I forgot to bring an umbrella, so..."

"Yeah."

The last students are trickling out through the gates. Once they're outside, she settles to walk beside him. He shortens his steps to match her more restrained pace.

"If you break her heart I will hurt you", Tatsuki said to him in curt tones.

"You already have, I know. You didn't even mean to. You bastard."

He came to see Inoue as a friend in the long-short year of the war. She saved his life, he saved hers, back and forth; they feared and grieved and endured together. He learned to rely on her quiet presence, watching their backs, ready to catch those who fell.

They cross a street and turn to traverse a park, hidden between blocks of flats. The sun still shimmers through the clouds, though stretches of dark purple dominate the sky above the sea.

"Really, what is it?" Inoue breaks the silence. "You can tell me, right? If it's really important, I could even sign a confidentiality agreement. Just between you, me and the—the lamp post, I guess."

"I kinda... How'd you know, anyway?"

"You never ask to walk alone with me. You were waiting outside the classroom." Her gaze is trained ahead on a bubbling stone fountain. "There's something important on your mind."

"She's sharp. She knows you. Better than you do, you idiot."

"We're friends," he says abruptly. "We can walk home together, can't we?"

"Of course." She nods at him. "It's... normal. You were just so quiet."

"Lost in thought. It's not you, okay?" Except that it is, wrapped in threads of the vicious tangle that unfortunately stands for the... for the state of his mind. The term love life is strictly Mizuiro's province, and implies all sorts of convolutions Ichigo has no wish to apply to himself. He fishes around for something to salvage the conversation.

"Why were you still at school?" Inoue comes his rescue.

"Uh. I was reading, in the library." That much is true, though he could as well have gone home to study.

"How are you holding up? It isn't so long until the entrance exams anymore."

"I'm dealing." His midterm report, though disastrous, was better than he had hoped. He's even glad to let school consume his life—this present situation being a prime example of why.

"That's good. And, if you need any..."

"That's fine, Inoue." He isn't about to became a dead academic weight on any of his friends. "Just worry about yourself, okay? You already decide where you're going?"

It is widely whispered that Ishida has his sights on Tokyo University, and Ichigo has told him good riddance on several occasions—but now he realises Inoue's career choice is a mystery to him.

"Yes." She steps over a puddle of yesterday's rain. "I want to be a nurse. I'm not as clever as Ishida-kun, but I think I could be good at that."

"You'd be great." He means it, though it springs unbidden to his tongue. " You will be."

She breaks into a smile. "Thank you." He turns his eyes to the sky, counting the blocks in his mind. They might make it before the rain, or at least Inoue will.

"And you?"

"I what? Oh, you mean after high school." He tugs at his hair. "Can you keep a secret?"

"I said I'd sign a confidentiality agreement." She winks at him, a shade of the carefree, whimsical Inoue she was before the war. "It'll be safe as houses. With alarm systems and big hulking guards."

"I'm gonna try for paramedic. Guess it's like with you. I wanna... make a difference. Help people. But doctors... well, you know Pop."

"He's very kind. I would want to be like him."

"Yeah, and he's certifiable. And has a secret identity."

Inoue laughs. "You are like him."

"Oh, sure." I'm about to turn you down and I didn't even know you liked me. That's the farthest thing from kind.

They halt to wait at a crossing when the first thin, icy droplets speckle the asphalt. She holds out her hand to catch the rain. "What do you think? Should we hide, or run for it?" She pauses. "Neither seems like your style."

"I'm learning the occasional value of both." Diagonally across the street, he spots a rundown café, its colourful marquees flapping in the wind. "I guess we run for it. Over there!"

A flash of merriment in her eyes, she dashes across the street ahead of him. They duck into the doorway scant seconds before the winter downpour washes the street. After an exchange with the waitress, they sit down at a table. Inoue wipes her hands on the warm towel, then peers at him.

A fresh wave of fidgeting creeps over him. Whenever he forgets what this walk home was originally about—and she seems to make that easy—he's enjoying her company, which makes everything that much harder.

"So?" She accepts a mug of cocoa from the waitress. There is that vein of concern in her voice again.

"I can—" He clears his throat as the waitress places his soda in front of him. "Thanks. So. Yeah. I can tell you, can't I?"

She takes a sip of her mug. "Uh-huh."

"It's messy. And more than messy. I guess catastrophic is the word. I mean, not like, say, gettin' locked in Hueco Mundo when Karakura's about to be—but—"

"Nothing could be like that," she says, and he feels like a complete dumbass. "It's okay. Just go back to the messy part."

"Sorry." He fixes his eyes on the table, sure he will flush like a radish if he looks at her. What the hell am I doing?

"The messy part's kinda like this." Just for something to do, he takes a rather noisy drag on his soda. "There's someone I... you know, I've been watchin'."

"Mm-hm." She nods a little.

"Just for... a bit now." It's half a lie, but he can't let the silence come and speak its own truths. He has to get this out now, in one go. "But someone... I kinda... It'd just be fair to let you know, you know?" The admission splatters uncouthly over the conversation.

Inoue has curved her hands around the mug. "Right," she says in a small voice.

"I'm..." Is he sorry that she's watched him for a long time, or for having to tell her, or for seeing her, someone he really cares for, hurt and dismayed? "I'm sorry."

You took her out to tell her no. You're an ass, Kurosaki Ichigo. Right now, he is not sure whether his subconscious sounds more like Rukia or Tatsuki.

I didn't! At least I didn't mean to. Shit.

After a long pause, during which a traitorous fraction of him wants to slink away, and the rest stomps on its neck, Inoue turns back to him.

"Sorry for what?" she asks with uncommon frankness.

He forces the twitching pieces of his mind to stick together. "I didn't wanna upset you."

"It does hurt. Right now it hurts."

Ichigo knows how to treat his sisters when they cry. That is the total sum of his experience with weeping girls. He guesses Rukia would kick and snap at him, but that's her, and she's a special case.

This is Inoue, soft, pleasant, girlishly unfathomable.

She is looking at him with dry, if bright eyes.

"You're kind," she says at last. If he could, he might reach to take her hand, for all the right reasons and for all the wrong results.

"I had an... an inkling, Kurosaki-kun." He can hear how she retreats behind his surname. "It's not really... I'll be all right."

"Look..." He founders, then forges forward as ineptly as he can. "That's... that's good. I hope you will."

Nice try, Kurosaki. Hope you feel better, too.

"It is messy. I'm not sure it could not be." Pushing her chair back, Inoue leaves her half-full mug on the table. "I think the rain's letting up a little."

"Looked like a shower to me." He nods. "So, uh..." He shrugs on his jacket and pulls up the zipper, for whatever protection from the rain it affords. She turns up the lapels of her coat, half hiding her face. He holds the door open for her from some stupid notion of courtesy. Stepping past, she takes a deep breath and speaks, her back to him.

"Would you still walk with me?"

Ichigo works down the gummy bit in his throat. "Sure. Any time. If you want."

"Some other day." Inoue pulls the strap of her bag across her chest. "I'll see you at school, Kurosaki-kun." She springs into a run down the wet pavement.

"See you," he calls after her, but his voice is too rough for the goodbye to carry.

* * *

Soul Society is always warmer than the living world. Karakura soaks in late February rain, but here, a spring lightning storm gathers above Seireitei. Even through the layers of rock overhead, the pressure in the air is palpable. The training ground is thick with unleashed reiatsu, obscured by the dust their sparring has raised.

"Feel like blowin' off some steam? Go full out this time?" Renji asked him as they entered Urahara's old hideout. Ostensibly, this practice bout provides a break for both of them; Ichigo is strung high with anticipation of the college exam that now consumes every other kind of worry. While he isn't positive what's eating Renji, it's plain to see something's burrowed under his skin.

The only answer Ichigo gave was to release his bankai and round on Renji. It began as a warm-up game of shunpo tag and escalated into a ground-shaking confrontation as Renji, too, let his bankai roar to life. No matter how Renji might slot into the puzzle of his personal relationships, this is the way they first connected, and still do: the spar kicks into motion as if nothing chafed between them.

Ichigo dives under Zabimaru's bone sections. His speed is unmatchable, but Renji has greater range. A whirl in the surrounding reiatsu alerts him to the next strike, and he sweeps away as a blast from Zabimaru's jaws gouges into the ground where he stood.

In the split second after the attack, he flings out a Getsuga. Renji is out of sight, concealed by the coils of his zanpakutou, but Zabimaru isn't as well protected. Ichigo fires as many of the sickles of energy as he can. The segments of the neck scatter; he hears Renji curse and smirks to himself. The damage is incidental. What it buys him is an opening.

Zangetsu is as intimate a part of his body as bone and muscle and nerve. They fight as one. Renji and Zabimaru fight as two in seamless harmony, joined by a single purpose; when one falters, the other follows.

He's already bloodied and bruised and breathing heavily. They carry on until one gives in. He kicks off a vertebra as they slide back into alignment, buffeted by Zabimaru's bellow behind him. The jagged jaws plummet towards him and he's a hair too slow. His robes tear off his shoulder, caught on a fang, but he surges free. Shucking the ripped sleeve, he leaps recklessly further inside Renji's reach.

"Bastard—!" Surprise rings in Renji's shout. A hail of smaller segments almost catches Ichigo in midair. He throws back a Getsuga to disperse them and summons every ounce of speed left in his body.

He wills himself there and then he is. He whips Zangetsu around more for show and freezes the blow just short of slicing into Renji's neck. To his credit, Renji doesn't even flinch; then resigned amusement breaks through the blood and dust on his face.

"Fine. You win."

"About time," Ichigo sighs. "Whoa." As they shed their bankai, he grabs an unashamed hold of Renji's shoulder for support. That is okay. That he can do. The greatest perk to training in Urahara's cavern is the healing spring at one end; both their flash-steps hobble as they make their way there.

"'You see me this time?" Ichigo cocks an eyebrow at the old joke. Renji teaches him strategy and endurance; he seems to mostly hone Renji's reflexes. It's a fair trade.

"I do." Renji eyes him up and down. "Had so much fun couldn't keep your shirt on?"

"Huh? Oh, right." He strips off the remains of his robes. He's more dirty than hurt, but his hip aches where Renji landed a lucky blow early on.

"Not a bad look, I guess. It's hot enough."

"Stuff it, smartass," Ichigo snaps back and only then realises Renji hasn't looked away. His eyes gleam with insufferable mirth. Shit, and this was going so well; he could lose the awkward pauses in the energy of the sparring.

"What?" Renji yanks off his shitagi, too much knowledge in his voice.

Ichigo swallows hard and shoves him into the spring.

* * *

Clothed again in his hakama and a clean shitagi, Ichigo tosses his towel over a rock to dry. Renji is done cleaning his sword, wrapping the hilt-thread back into place. Ichigo slouches down to the left of him and holds out the water flask. Renji accepts, swallows a mouthful and passes it back.

Somewhere far out, thunder rolls in the sky. An echo reverberates round the cavern walls. Ichigo drinks until the edge of his thirst is dulled and thinks that this is all too damn comfortable.

"Hey," he says.

Renji hums as he presses the pommel cap on the hilt, finished with his work.

"How's Rukia? Seen her lately?" The query is about as graceful as a drunken hippo, but he rolls the topic out anyway.

"Not much. She's been stayin' at the Kuchiki estate a lot. I don't really like goin' there without reason."

"Rukia's not a reason?" "Declare your intentions", eh, Ichigo? Shit, he feels like they were meeting on some rain-lashed field for a single-stroke duel to the death for a lady's honour. If only it were a simple matter of defending her; then they would join forces and deal with it.

Renji looks up. "You know I didn't mean it like that."

"I do?" Ichigo doesn't feel like cutting him slack right now. "You're supposed to keep an eye on her. You got a good telescope?"

"Get a grip, Ichigo!" Renji's eyes harden. "She's fine. I'm not about to babysit a woman who can give you a run for your money at swords. Even less so when she's my best friend."

"That's not an exclusive claim, you know? I'm kinda counting on you here." This wasn't about keeping Rukia safe, was it? Some part of Ichigo hangs back to blink owlishly at the rest, which is diving ahead on sheer irritation. "To look out for my friends when I can't?"

"Ring the bells an' whip up a parade, Kurosaki admits he can't do it all on his own."

"Oh, fuck you!" He springs onto his feet. Kurosaki cuts to a depth he really didn't expect. "Fine for you to talk when you aren't living in two damn worlds! You think I like that I can't be here more, that you guys—"

"The hell's wrong with you today?" Renji breaks into his tirade, standing up, hands fisted. "Thought this was a trainin' session. Now you're snappin' like a whacked dog! You got a bone to pick with me, fine. No idea why, but how 'bout you don't drag Rukia into it?"

How can he want so badly to pound in the head of a guy who just minutes ago almost made him lose his own? "Don't really see how I 'dragged' her anywhere! You think she's not a part of this? I get she's still recovering, but—" But you both drive me up the wall and I don't know how the fuck to deal with this. He pulls into a forcible halt, his breath hissing out.

"But what?"

"What are you gonna do about her?" It's not the answer to Renji's question. It's a feeble diversion.

"About Rukia?" Renji pauses.

"Yeah, about Rukia." It is part of the problem.

"I told you this." Suddenly, Renji is quiet and grave. "Be there when she needs me. Be her friend best I know how."

"That's all?" He's taken a step forward. He is unlikely to ever reach Renji's height, but he can glower at him at eye-level just fine.

"That's all. What'd you wanna hear?"

Renji is walling himself up behind that reserved face that's like nothing Ichigo knows. He's done that himself before. He hates it right now, hates that Renji is throwing his own tactics back at him; the realisation is clear, tart as the dryness in his mouth.

"Don't you fucking dare," he says.

Renji's jaw slackens, eyes slitting with bemusement.

"I didn't walk across half a country and nearly lose my mind more than once so you could go back to this same shit you pulled before!"

"What? Now look—"

Ichigo seizes Renji's upper arms. Some part of him is shaking, but his hands are steady. "I don't claim to know what she's thinking, but you're not stepping back and hoping to fade if I got any say in it! None of that, you hear me?"

"Hold on a sec here! Who says you do have any say?"

"I do."

"You even have a damn idea what you're thinkin'?" Renji sounds hoarse, but there's force in his voice.

Ichigo grips the collar of Renji's shitagi, and realises his isn't the only heart trying to scale a throat here. "Guess I'm claiming a say. Take it up with me if you don't like it."

"Hey—" Renji never has a chance to finish. Ichigo reaches up and kisses him full on the mouth. He makes a choked sound, but never tries to pull away. His fingers rake through Ichigo's hair and something clicks; the kiss slides from awkward to urgent. Renji kisses so unlike Rukia, with a razor edge of challenge and heat that makes it hard to keep anything slow.

They vie for control for a few seconds, before the kiss evens out and they move together, tongues and teeth, tasting and studying. He can only hope to see straight afterwards.

His ears thrum as they draw back. They both breathe without rhythm, soft shallow pants. Renji blinks at him. "You... what was that?"

"That's what I think," Ichigo rejoins. He withdraws to see Renji better. They've slid back a couple of steps, the rock surrounding the spring at Renji's back now.

"That's one hell of a thought process."

"Wanna make something of it?" If he stops now, he'll flounder. His hand pushes against Renji's shoulder, warm, scar-brushed skin under his fingers.

Renji tugs his chin up and makes a hard, deep kiss of it. Ichigo fumbles, but Renji isn't hasty so much as thorough. He cants his head the other way, making Renji slow down; there's a learning curve here and damn him if he doesn't clear it. The other man obliges or relents, still holding his head with both hands. Ichigo seizes the chance to just kiss Renji, until heat pools low in his stomach and he's running an unwise, curious hand down Renji's ribcage.

Something bats against the side of his face. Renji nudges him aside; a hell butterfly is flapping insistently overhead.

"Whoa!" he says, gasping. "Has that—when'd that come?"

"Too long ago." Renji lowers his hands. "It's... it's a captains' meeting. I... oughta go."

His thoughts wobble; the world has shifted, in a tiny and fundamental way. Renji, eyes hazy and heated, still stares at him. His head swims, but he reaches to swat Renji in the arm. "Yeah, you better move it."

"I..." Renji slips his sword into his sash, fascinated by the simple motion. "Listen, we—"

"Go!" Ichigo snatches up the towel and flings it at him.

The damp cloth stifles Renji's swearing, and buys Ichigo time to scoop up his things and get the heck out of the cavern. He is tumbling, glancing, careening forward, but where, he could not describe.

* * *

<< Twenty-Six: Tumble
>> Twenty-Eight: Ember

jaina came in with smart, sharp beta. Thanks for having my back yet again, babe.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Six

2009-07-27T10:07:48Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: Moves are made to various results. (3600 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Twenty-Six: Tumble

Rukia complains way too loudly for someone who didn't even have to carry a single box up the stairs.

Chad and Tatsuki stopped by earlier to help with the heavy lifting. Ichigo definitely owes them both one, now that all his stuff is crammed into the postage stamp-sized studio. He is glad they decided to go with the futon instead of his old bed. That frees enough floor space that he maybe won't have to learn to walk on walls.

"Why the heck d'you care how the blankets are folded?" He peers out from the kitchenette.

"You can be such a male," she says. "How I ever managed to live in your closet for two months is quite beyond me."

"I got a guest futon. You won't hafta go back there anymore."

"I wouldn't fit in there anymore, given how you've stuffed these in!" She dumps the bedding back onto the floor.

"Hey, I was done with those!"

The ensuing quarrel is cut short by the racket of his family at the door. His father all but breaks through the door, but he is carrying enough food to feed a small army. Yuzu scampers inside past him and just like that, Rukia is drafted into helping her fill the kitchen cupboards. Karin brings up the rear, balancing a stack of takeout boxes.

He never expected to be able to slink out without his family's meddling, however well-meaning it is. Rukia's appearance at the clinic doorstep on his moving day produced predictable results: she was swept along into the boisterous caper of the Kurosaki clan helping its son take his first steps in the wider world.

"It is a little early, as my foolish son hasn't even got into college yet," Isshin announces. "But we all have faith in him, and it isn't every day an affordable studio like this comes along!"

"His colleague was renting out this place," Ichigo translates in between bites of his noodles. Karin and Yuzu huddle on the floor in a tête-à-tête, bent over Yuzu's mobile phone, so Rukia's attention is on him and his father. "So we had to seize the day, I guess."

"I understand." She nods. "Did you not have the entrance examinations already?"

"Not yet. I just filed the applications. We'll see." Fortunately his father chooses this moment to try and steal Yuzu's phone, and he's spared the inevitable speech about fortitude and perserverance.

"Then you still have time to study. It'd be silly to throw in the blanket at this point—"

Yuzu's rare, vocal complaint cleaves her sentence, and then Karin scrambles up after a crowing Isshin. "Give that back, you damn old goat!"

"Towel, Rukia," Ichigo says under his breath even as he moves to separate his father and sister. "You throw in the towel."

She rolls her eyes at him before occupying herself with soothing Yuzu. In spite of the hot food, it's been a tiring day for all of them; Ichigo is secretly glad when Isshin soon proclaims it's time for Daddy and his daughters to head on home.

"You better keep studying hard," Karin says on her way out. "Since you got to do the graduation move-to-your-own-place thing before you even graduated."

"Some of us have all the luck." He pokes her in the cheek with his knuckles. "Don't let Pop get to you, you hear?"

"Hn, like I would. Enjoy your freedom." For a second, she leans into his side. "Don't start your life of debauchery on the first night on your own, 'kay?"

"How old were you again?" Ichigo's face reddens. "Eh, go on already, s'not like I'm gonna miss you!"

Yuzu calls from the stairway, "You'll come for dinner on Sunday, right, brother?"

"Do not despair, Yuzu-chan, the ties of familial love are not so easily severed!"

"Oh, just get out! I will!"

Karin's laughter trails after her in the stairwell until Ichigo bangs the door shut on the lot of them, holding back only for Yuzu's sake. He hooks the chain in place, then turns to look at the mess of cardboard boxes, half-filled shelves, plastic wrap, and articles of clothing spilled from some overfull moving container.

Some life of debauchery this is going to be.

Rukia sits in his new desk chair, nibbling on the last of her udon noodles. The shadeless ceiling lamp haloes her head in a fringe of mussed strands. She returns his gaze across the room. He realises she, too, looks exhausted, her eyes large and unsure under the veneer of polite know-it-all she's maintained all day.

"They didn't heckle you too much, did they?" He thwaps the door for emphasis. "Karin just teases, don't mind it."

"I don't mind," she says, then hesitates. "Ichigo? You don't think I could stay the night?"

* * *

Ichigo kicks open the guest futon and drops her old pillow on it. He didn't look so closely when picking out his extra bedding, but the pillow was on top of the pile...

Whatever.

Rukia emerges from the bathroom, nearly swallowed by the towel draped around her. "Thank you. It was cramped, but refreshing."

The towel comes down to her calves. He's seen her in less, although there was usually life-threatening injury involved, but neither her thin ankles nor the arch of her bare shoulders should make him feel as warm as they do. She has something weighing on her mind that makes her reluctant to return home tonight. He can respect that, as a friend.

"You can blame the price of real estate." He hides his fluster behind a grin. "There's some stuff in the fridge. Pop bought those fluffy vanilla biscuits you like. I'm gonna shower now, so... just get changed, and, you know. I'll yell before I come out."

Back home, it was feasible to get dressed in the bathroom. The studio affords no such luxury, which leads to some complications.

"Go on. I'm sure I can manage. I can even use the rice cooker now."

"Don't. Just don't." He doesn't want to end up making a headlong dash from the shower and electrocuting himself on some malfunctioning kitchen appliance. He shakes a finger at her and slips away into the bathroom before she can toss anything at him.

When he comes out, she is in her borrowed pyjamas. She turns to plumb the depths of Yuzu's fruit basket while he pulls on some clothes.

"You better not get crumbs on my bed," he carps as she bites into another biscuit, topped with an apple slice.

"I am nowhere near your bed, imbecile."

"Well, they fly, what with the way you—"

She chucks half of the apple at him. He dives to catch it before it smashes into his bedside lamp. "Hey! Watch it!"

"I think that is enough. I wouldn't wish to disturb your new home on the first night, even if the master of the house is an idiot."

"He's got a mean houseguest." He takes a bite out of the apple. "That's an extenuating circumstance."

"We'll balance out, then."

"Yeah, that's hilarious."

* * *

Rukia tugs at the pillow until it has a shape that fits under her head. Across the scant breadth of floor between their futons, Ichigo is sprawled on his back, knees raised, holding up a book into the light of his reading lamp.

"What are you reading? For the examination?"

"Nah, just this poem." He sounds evasive. "I'm tryin' to read them in English."

"Will you translate for me?" She simply wants the sound of his voice in her ears, to remind her of his presence in the muzzy half-dark. If she let herself deconstruct that desire, she would end up having to withdraw, explain, leave. Right now, loneliness frightens her more than selfishness, so she stays.

"It's in Japanese here." He raises the book so she can see the characters on the right-side page, next to the strange alphabet from the west.

"Then read it to me. Out loud."

"What?" His voice is muffled with surprise. "You serious?"

"Since I do so frequently joke at your expense."

His silence is pointed enough that she huffs in concession. "I did mean it. I would like to hear."

Giving a wordless grunt, he flips the book back a few pages, while she burrows into the cocoon of the covers. His voice rasps as if with disuse as he begins. "Okay. Sonnet one hundred an' seven. 'Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul/ Of the wide world dreaming on things to come/ Can yet the lease of my true love control/ Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom...'"

He coughs, the building cadence lost. She doesn't mind. She shuffles closer under the covers until her slack hand could touch his side, the bared strip of skin where his tee-shirt has bunched up under his back.

" 'The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured'," he goes on, falling back into a tempo lower and more focused than his speaking voice. " 'And the sad augurs mock their own presage/ Incertainties now crown themselves assured/ And peace proclaims olives of endless age...' Are you listening?"

"Yes," she says. "Eclipses and augurs and olives, whatever those are. Continue."

"Stop being so bossy. 'Now with the drops of this most balmy time/ My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes...'"

This place smells different from his old room, but he smells the same, clean now, something mild and woodsy. She watches his profile against the lamp and thinks that if she were to run a hand through his hair, the roots of it would be damp under her fingers.

" 'And thou in this shalt find thy monument/ When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent." Ichigo punctuates the last verse with an intake of breath. "Happy now?"

She meets his expentant stare with a more befuddled one of her own. Probably she is; his reading voice echoes pleasantly in her head, lending the words some secret, sacred meaning. "Yes," she says.

"Coulda fooled me. You had this funny look on your face just now."

"I'm fine, idiot. Your poetry is lovely, though I haven't heard much like it."

"It's not Japanese, it's English, dumbass. Foreign." He stretches up to push the book onto the table next to the lamp. "What d'you read in Soul Society, anyway? You don't have manga, or..." He slumps onto his side to face her. She is momentarily caught by the planes of light and shadow shifting over his features.

"There—there is poetry. The kind my brother reads in the evenings." With a dash of devilment, she adds, "And the kind you must be drunk to recite properly. The two do not mesh." She could sink into this moment and never come up again, learn to breathe the soap in his skin and the ink in his book and live on the sound of his reading.

"I bet," he says drily.

"Still, I might prefer yours."

"Over which of those kinds, Rukia?"

"Either." She smothers a smile at his scowl. "Both." She tilts forward and up, touches a delicate finger to his jaw, and lets her mouth slant over his.

* * *

The first time Kurosaki Ichigo kisses a girl goes something like this: He's splayed on the side of his futon, feeling silly and moved in the way pretty much no one but Rukia can make him. It lands between a sound blow in the sternum and persistent tug at the heart. She's wiggled closer while he worked through the lines with the stresses he always gives them in his head. He's never read them aloud before.

He hasn't read aloud to anyone, period, since first Karin and then Yuzu grew out of bedtime stories. That train of thought comes to a crashing stop when Rukia leans up to him.

The ubiquitous strand of her hair hangs over the arch of her eyebrow. That's the last thing he notes before the feel and the fact of her kissing him blank out all else. It is a brief brush of their mouths together, and something quick and wet that could be the tip of her tongue on his lip as she withdraws, and that sends a shiver undulating down his throat—in any case, he is left gawking at her.

"Um," he says. "Er. Rukia, what..."

Tatsuki would kill me. He almost wishes she'd appear to try that. It would distract him from the shape of Rukia's mouth as it pinches shut, or the fine shadows in the corners of her eyes that deepen as she squints at him.

"What," she says.

"Look." He sits up, fisting his hands in the covers to keep them somewhere. "I'm not sayin' this is a—a bad move, actually something like the opposite, but—"

But she's convalescent and a little messed up in the head and all that. Even if he admits to fluttery feelings when she comes near like just now, she is still his friend, and he can't screw that up by acting like some sleazy pervert. Anyway, this is Rukia with her weird notions of human behaviour...

All this flashes helter-skelter through his brain in the second that it takes her to pull up into a sitting position. She regards him with ink-dark eyes.

"Okay," he begins again. "Lemme try that again. Was that—you know, somethin' you picked up from manga? Or—crap, I don't know. What were you—?"

"I'm sorry," she says, clipped. "I should not have presumed."

"Presumed?" Maybe they can make a game out of parroting each other. "What're you sorry for?"

She shucks the covers aside and fumbles towards her shoulder bag. He couldn't name the exact thing that galvanises him into action, but he grabs her shoulder.

"Rukia."

"Ichigo." Her face is frozen with effort to control her expression. "Let go of me. I'll leave now."

"Like hell." Heedless of that she might sock him, he whips her around to face him. "Look, I'm sorry if I said something dumb, but you're not going like that!"

"I'll go when I please!"

"I'm apologising! What more d'you want?" He feels like he's at the edge of an unknown space, shouting into the emptiness in the hope that the echoes will align themselves into the right things to say. Rukia kissed him. That should be something good, and right, but there's the matter with Inoue, and the matter with Renji, and oh, shit.

"What are you apologising for?" Rukia is poised for some reaction; to wrest free, to move closer. Her mouth softens with the question.

"What are you?" He loosens his grip, not releasing it. "Why are we so damn sorry, anyway, Rukia?"

"I... thought I'd overstepped my bounds."

"Maybe. No, you didn't. I guess I managed to say something to tick you off. Happens a lot."

"It's all right." Her shoulder muscles unwind, and her lips part a fraction. "You mean well."

"Well, I try." A flush of heat stings his cheeks even as he strives for unconcern.

"Dolt."

"Dummy."

Her fingers curve around the back of his head, and he draws her closer by the shoulders. His eyes flick shut of their own accord as her lips skim his cheek and then his mouth.

Three seconds later, she breaks away to mutter, "Don't open your mouth like that."

"How 'bout you get your hair out of my nose?"

"Are we doing this or arguing about it?"

He huffs, but lets her steer him, easing into the slow, snug fit of the kiss. That kiss segues into the next, and the next, and he begins to grasp the tiny complexities there. His heart thrums in his ears, as if his chest weren't big enough to contain it. Rukia doesn't seem to care: her arms link around his neck and her mouth is pliant and insistent.

Shifting back, he raises her up to avoid a creeping crick in his neck, and she bends into the hollow of his body. With a pang, melting-hot, low in his stomach, he becomes aware that for all her angles, Rukia has soft curves now pressed against him. It's not like he didn't know that. The knowledge just never was so... hands-on. As it were, all that separates him from the fact is the thin flannel of her pyjama top.

"What now?" She sounds out of breath.

"Rukia," he says, because she always could set him straight, and maybe he needs that now. "We should do this. Only not... like this. I mean, yeah, if you really want to, then I'm sorta all for it, but..."

There's a few things I have to deal with first.

"I see." She bites her lip, teeth dragging over it. The small movement draws his gaze as if by a string.

Right. Things to be dealt with. Like Renji. What would Renji even say if he knew? While he's on the subject of unpleasant implications, what is Rukia thinking, given he saw her with Renji once much like they are now, beside a campfire in the wilds of another world?

There have to be words appropriate for this situation. "Don't. Don't see. Just... wait a while. Sit tight."

"You can be so strange."

"Like you're not a—a walking conglomeration of weirdness."

Of all things in the world, she chuckles at that. "Very well." Her expression grows sober. "I will wait, for a while."

Ichigo has to sit back and breathe. Reality descends in on him with jellyish slowness. Rukia still leaves an imprint on his senses, a subliminal signal that keeps her in the dead centre of his focus.

"Perhaps we should sleep now." She pulls the covers back over herself.

"I guess." His clock radio blinks 01:22 in red digital numbers. He should've been asleep an hour ago. She's planning on going to sleep in his space after what just happened. "You want—should I switch off the lamp?"

"Please do." Her hair fans out over the pillow. He can't make himself look away from her, even when the lamplight flickers out. "And, Ichigo..."

"Yeah?"

"Good night. Sleep well."

"You, too."

Cross-legged on his futon, he watches her for a long time after she's fallen asleep. The outline of her back under the covers rises and dips with her slumbering breath, and the sight blends into a fitful dream where he walks behind her, always a step, always the turn of a corner too late.

* * *

A tray of tea utensils in her hands, Rukia glances around the vacant office. The day is pleasantly hazy, so it would not be unlike Captain Ukitake to have taken the paperwork outside.

He sitting on the veranda, but looks up to greet her at once. She serves him the tea and ferries signed reports inside to return with a fresh stack from his in-tray.

"Do you have a moment, Kuchiki?" he asks when she is about to excuse herself back to the accounts.

"Of course."

"You were cleared for active duty last week. How would you feel about returning to full commission?"

"Without hesitation, sir." Her work in the office is worthwhile, but sometimes, huddling at a desk when she knows she could—even should—be on the field is enough to drive her mad.

"Based on the latest evaluations," he says, and a slow smile steals on his face, "you would be qualified to fill the fifth seat. I would like to offer you the position."

Rukia knows she is staring and cannot help it.

"Well, will you accept this considerable honour?" Her captain is teasing her. That returns a measure of her composure.

She dips into a bow. "With all my heart, sir." Her whole body feels light, brimming with purpose. "Thank you. I... I am not even sure what to say. I will do my best to meet your trust in me."

"I have not doubt of that. You'll make a fine officer." His expression sharpens. "I'd also like you to know that all restrictions on your advancement have been lifted. You're free to compete for higher seats like every other member of this division."

"I see," is all she can say. She knows, through Ichigo, in fact, that her brother had once limited her rise through the ranks. The implications of this new development dumbfound her. "Sir, did you—I should not ask that."

"Sit, Kuchiki." Ukitake gestures at a woven cushion across from his place at the writing table. "Before you fall over."

"I—I am fine," she protests. This is no way for a newly appointed officer to behave. Not that she is even formally appointed yet. Still, she was given an instruction. She takes the offered seat, and the tea cup her captain holds out to her. "Thank you, sir."

"You have been through a lot lately," he says as if it explained everything, and turns back the reports, leaving her cradling the delicate cup.

He is allowing her to regroup her wits. She tries to push away all thoughts of her brother; heartache and upset lie that way. The tea is precisely right, strong and piquant on her tongue. After a moment, she sets the cup down with a bow of her head.

Ukitake raises his head at the chink of china on wood. "The results of the evaluations will be posted tomorrow. I'll see you at the ceremony."

"Yes, Captain."

"And, Kuchiki?" He stops her as she rises. "Officially, I shouldn't say this, but you really should speak to Byakuya. It would be good for the both of you."

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Five: Self-Inflicted
>> Part Twenty-Seven: Graceless

prpl_pen saved my butt from confusing syntax and continuity errors yet again. I'm really too lucky in the beta department.

The sonnet Ichigo is reading is, of course, this by the old wordsmith himself. Fortunately Shakespeare is in the public domain by now.

The TAR Challenge, weeks 5 and 6: the round-up

2009-07-25T18:15:48Z

Fine, I lied. I didn't mean to.

Word count for weeks 5 and 6: 4262 words
Stories worked on: The Roots of Heaven (2157 words), Night Watch (2105 words)
Music for the week: Blood of Me by Heather Nova, Running Up That Hill by Placebo, Aftersun by Massive Attack, Strange Love Triangle by New Order and Depeche Mode.
Best writing aid in the history of everything discovered: Write or Die. ILU, echoinautumn.

Damn, cats and kittens, the TAR Challenge has wound to a close. I could've done heaps and loads better, but overall I'm very happy we all did this.

This morning, toasts were made, Ten gave a speech and we all joined in, with our water and pomegranate soya milk and B-52 (kahlua and orange) and Crowmoor apple cider. It was a fine end to a fine endeavour, only--

I plan on carrying on a lighter version for the month of August. I'll be a lot busier then, but I'll be adopting 'Pea's old count of 100 words a day, six days a week. I will still do weekly or bi-weekly reports and most likely post everything that isn't Roots under the same old filter. Thank you all for the interest and the thoughtful comments, for the encouragement and the kind words, for the enthusiasm and the grammar nudges.

Cheers.

As always, ficbits are filtered here.

The TAR Challenge, weeks 5 and 6: the ficbits

2009-07-25T18:01:00Z

Again, Roots bits will come when the beta is done.

* * *

Scene I: From Night Watch, a co-written postwar story featuring Momo, Renji and Izuru. I'm lucky enough to have the lovely echoinautumn as my co-author for this piece, and the extract is lifted from the prospective prologue of the story. 2105 words. To be continued.

Chapter One

It was five months, to the day, since the War of the Key had ended.

The rime of frost on the puddles of the courtyard shattered under Momo's running feet. Her breath puffed up into the air as she dashed out through the division gate, her papers clutched under one arm.

She wasn't late yet. She would be, within minutes, and she must be punctual. If the Captain-Commander arrived before her, her entrance would draw attention. Shirking out of sight had become an art form, as much as a lieutenant of the Gotei could pretend to be part of the wall panels.

She'd rather be invisible than scorned, given the choice.

To her relief, the meeting hall was quiet. Meetings were subdued affairs when compared to the hubbub of before the war, especially when all the senior officers convened, such as today. She took her place on the left of the captain-commander's chair, stepping tightly into the spot where the captain of the division would stand.

Acting Captain Hinamori Momo of the Fifth, present.

The first time she'd done this, she'd wanted to curl up and sob until her insides ached. She'd fled as soon as the meeting was through and sat choking back tears in the darkness of the administrative office. Now, she could keep her feet steady and her eyes faced forward to the serene form of Captain Unohana.

On Unohana's right, however, the gap in the ranks was deeper than it seemed. Captain Kuchiki was bedridden, maimed, and the vice-captain's spot gaped equally as empty, if for a different reason.

If she concentrated--unless she concentrated--she could feel the dry wind blowing through her hair, snapping at her clothes, trying to pierce her with the whipping gusts of sand caught in it.

Between her place and the commander's chair, another was absent. She lowered her eyes and wished that news would have come from Hueco Mundo by now. Communication was unreliable, the Twelfth's efforts constantly thwarted by this spiritual anomaly or that. Communicators broke down and butterflies were ripped by the gales, runners returned lost and addled days behind schedule. Spirit gates could pierce the garganta into the vast emptiness of Hueco Mundo, but the cancer at its heart was spreading.

Her two surviving friends would return today. She'd ignore the exhaustion in their eyes, the haunted lines of their mouths. She'd touch their hands and sit down with them to eat, to rest, to talk about topics of little consequence that told you you were still alive and among friends.

She did not look past the unusually hunched Captain Kyouraku. That place in the line held a ghost. Rangiku stood half a step behind where her place as acting captain would have been.

Momo understood why. She also knew why, in every meeting since the end of the war, she herself had had to walk every last step to the forefront.

Aizen Sousuke was dead, undone by his own devices. The key he had turned had opened a door he could not close, and the forces unleashed had destroyed both him and wide swathes of Hueco Mundo.

She still dreamed of his demise, her mind constructing scenario after scheme of how it might have happened. She had Renji's slowly spoken narration. She had the confession of Tousen Kaname, listened to by captains and arbiters and officials prior to his execution for high treason. No record or story could ever replace the actual knowledge, and that she'd been denied forever.

The door slid open, slashing sunlight into the hall, and the gathered officers turned to Commander Yamamoto. Momo bowed alongside the others, always a little deeper than anyone else.

She hoped the meeting would not run too long. She had many reports to read, stamp, stack, send onwards. Even this, exiting the office for the hustle of people, seemed a strange break in the routine that pushed her through the loop of her quarters, office, practice hall, and back again. It created an unseen labyrinth where she was safe, cloistered, doing what was expected of her.

There, the images of a dying man she had admired past sanity could not find her. There, she had a purpose. There, her best friend was not gone.

Yamamoto's hoary voice rang out. Momo straightened her back and focused on her duty once again.

* * *

Renji hopped down from the rock where he'd crouched, sliding his way back along the broken ridge to the camp at the bottom. The wind circled the hollow in the desert bottom, leaving it a sheltered spot for now. You could never assume. The next time they came this way, a storm might have wiped out the haven. A dune might have crumbled atop the remnants of their fire, or the Hollows caught a whiff of vestigial reiatsu and come looking.

Hueco Mundo was a tightrope walk above deathly danger. It was two hours until their departure--in the emptiness of this place, it might've been two days, weeks, lifetimes.

The Hollows weren't the worst thing. They were plentiful, but most of them were small, witless, ravening creatures easily felled. The winds were harsh, the silence deafening, the dry land seemed to suck the marrow from your bones if you let it too deep inside you.

To Renji, the worst was the doubt.

Shaking dust from his clothes, he paused some way from the tents of heavy cloth. The safest way to patrol was to stay ready to move, so this encampment was as much of a base as they could build here. Seated on an exposed, bleached stone, Izuru brushed the hood of his thick cloak back at Renji's approach.

"How does it look?"

"Quiet," he said. Izuru had in his hands a field writing kit, a wooden support for his papers, which fluttered under his pinning fingers. The topmost sheet was scrawled with observations of the vicinity: it had been an easy day, so far.

"You think we're in luck, or that something worse is coming?" They were shared command of the mission; three more camps, spaced out along the perimeter around Las Noches, would see a changing of the guard today. The two of them would be going home.

The taste of that word was both bitter and sweet, but Renji swallowed it. "Hope for the best, be ready for the worst. Everybody's reported on schedule, so maybe we can wrap this one up with a clean report."

"That sounds outright optimistic. Didn't Takai break her leg the other day?" Most of their medical needs were attended to in the field; an officer from the Fourth was included in each patrol group. Opening a gate through the roiling garganta was only to be done when fresh guards are brought in, or in life-threatening cases.

"Kunichi says she's holding up." Renji dropped his cheek against his palm. As senior officers, the brunt of keeping up morale fell on them, but they were a little secluded now, and he was too worn to pretend to Kira. "Break's clean, wound's not festerin' or anythin'." He paused. "I know she's one of yours. You're worried."

"I'm fine." Kira looked up at the moon. It had no cycle, no rising or setting. It floated across the sky at whim, sometimes vanishing in cloud, peering out again unchanged. Sometimes, the ground-hugging fumes from Las Noches were lifted by the winds, up to devour the crescent that was the only light in this place besides their fires and lanterns.

"Couple more hours." His friend's shoulder felt thin and hard through the cloak. Renji rested his hand there, then turned to see to their men. He had to go soon; Kira was holding position here, a fixed point for the gate to open, so his duty was to walk all the camps, make sure everyone stayed in contact and missives were passed along.

At first, it'd seemed weird to be reduced to such mundane duty, but he quickly learned the sense in Commander Yamamoto's order: the best way to survive in this place was to hunker down at the start of a watch cycle and stick to your position. Moving through the sands drained a shinigami in ways beyond the physical: the toxins in the air soaked into reiatsu, slurred speech and misted the senses. Those less hardy did better when stationary, responding to threats only as they manifested themselves.

He listened to the report of his sixth seat, nodding and then sending the woman to change the lookouts. All things considered, this, their south camp, was doing all right. Most of them would go home now, and Hisagi and Rangiku would take up his and Kira's places.

In a selfish corner of his mind, he was dying for a bath. The sand worked for rubbing away sweat, but it left tiny grains chafing in his joints, in his hair, under his fingernails.

Two more hours, as he'd said to Kira. Then he wouldn't have to stare at the scarred silhouette of Las Noches, sunken into its malformed crater, for another three or four weeks. That was the absolute minimum of time for changeover ruled by Captain Unohana, to make sure their health was preserved at an acceptable level.

His head brimmed with numbers these days. Hollow sightings, equipment tallies, water rations, levels of severity in injuries, skirmishes with Adjuchas, mental breakdowns due to the visions...

The doubt was the worst. Renji had been in Las Noches when Aizen had fallen. He'd been saved by his captain, seen the air fold in on itself and rip apart, heard the white walls crack and shatter as Aizen turned his key to the King's Realm.

That's not what's down there, he reminded himself as he took off, gathering the cloak around himself. There'd been no epiphany, no ascent higher for the man who would be a god.

Another realm had rushed into Las Noches, two realities colliding and bleeding into each other.

He crossed a patch where the sand had fused to jagged, glassy brightness, his reflection wavering under his feet as he picked his steps across the field. Another reminder that Hueco Mundo was not as before. The breach had collapsed under its own impossibility, but not without cost. The shinigami had had their triumph in the fulfillment of Aizen's own ambition or arrogance.

Some of them had witnessed the event, and still no one was sure of its full impact. Little holes in the fabric of Hueco Mundo let the dark decay of Hell seep through, warp the landscape and the wind, drive both the Hollows and their watchers mad.

They could guard, but they couldn't mend.

A shudder ran under the sand as Renji reached the end of the glass field. He spun in place, felt the air blister with a foreign spirit pressure, choking him with the saw-edges of a Hollow's presence.

Something was skimming the desert surface, rising from the ruined Forest of Menos. The bigger ones usually stayed closer to Las Noches in its valley. Some time this was for one to get adventurous.

"Oh, fuck." Renji jerked his phone from his sleeve, praying no errant wave of spirit particles would arrive to block the connection. Even as the tremor passed to his right, skirting the glazed slope, Kira's voice rasped into his ear.

"Abarai? What is it?"

"Something's comin' your way, and fast! I'm on it, but get them the hell outta there!"

"I'll get word to the others. Be careful." One of the best things about working with Kira was the long familiarity; neither of them wasted a word, and he could be secure in the knowledge that Kira would see to their subordinates.

"Never," he chuckled in answer and shoved the phone away. Zabimaru whispered out of the sheath in a loose, fluid motion as he dashed after the burrowing creature. "C'mon out, you bastard, you're not gonna spoil this homecomin' if I have anythin' to say to that."

Today had been too quiet, anyway.

The TAR Challenge, weeks 3 and 4: the round-up

2009-07-14T16:30:48Z

This is an intermission post. I'm now up to date with my word counts, and a new post for week 5 is coming, gods of good grammar willing, at its appointed date on Saturday.

Word count for weeks 3 and 4: 3665 words (DONE, BITCHES)
Stories worked on: The Roots of Heaven (2250 words), Washed on your shore (661 words), untitled RenIchi penance smut (764 words)
Stories posted: Roots, parts 24 and 25. Still not there.
Music for the weeks: Heather Nova, plus kawree's wonderful RenHime FST, Only a Broken Heart.
New 'verses specced: 1) Rly Rly Old Captains 'verse sketched out with 'Pea in chat. This is the one where Ichigo and Renji are ancient and BFF, Ichigo and Rukia never got together but may have had a slow comfortable screw or three over the years as friends, Orihime and Renji did have a thing but she passed on before him, and the terrible trio has basically become the new Ukitake, Kyouraku and Unohana all by their threesome.
2) The Monkey and the Weaver 'verse is drifting free and looking for a good home.

raynos is my co-pilot.

Ficbits under the old filter here.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Five

2009-07-13T14:41:42Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: The past can both bind and set one free. (3500 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, warnings, pairings etc. can be found here.

* * *

Twenty-Five: Self-Inflicted

Ichigo walks the last steps to the cemetery slowly as always. Snow marbles the paths and markers with white. The naked trees stand still around the old temple on the hilltop. He washes the gravestone, lights the incense, and places the rice cakes before the stone.

"Hi, Mom." He's visited more often since the war, alone. This place used to hurt, but he has found a peace with it. It helps him to center himself better than any of Rukia's breathing exercises. "Yuzu made those with your recipe. She's gonna come by later with the old man.

"I kinda needed a break from studying. I hope you won't mind. I think I might actually get into college, though." He runs a hand over the characters etched into the stone. "Otherwise, things are pretty good. Pop reframed your poster. Karin's football club got into the city schools' semifinals. Business as usual."

Some people might find it weird that he talks aloud. He knows better than anyone that the dead can listen with the best of them. Besides, if he cannot talk to her, then who?

"I almost forgot. I decided I'm gonna be a paramedic. It just kinda clicked. Pop thinks I should... You know how he is. 'Follow my heart to fulfill my destiny.' I wonder what you'd say."

He hears ghosts all the time, yet few of them linger at the cemetery. He finds the silence reassuring.

"I miss you." He breathes in deep. "But I'm mostly good." He has learned he can just do that. She is gone. He'll never stop missing her, but he can accept his own grief.

"Yeah, mostly. You know by now things aren't ever really ordinary, even when they're fine." He swallows. "I... I think I may have a thing for this friend of mine. She's starting to remember me properly again. Though she was special, even before."

The incense is something piney, with a pungent whiff of resin. He stands up and slaps feeling back into his arms. The sunny afternoon is insidiously chilly.

"Then there's this other friend who's..." Tucking his hands under his arms, he tries to still his own fidgeting. Considering Inoue still makes him reel, for all that he's had days since Tatsuki's revelation at the party. "I don't have a clue about her," he whispers. "I care, yeah, 'course I do, but..."

It's one thing to be fond of someone because they're fanciful and gentle and good-hearted, and another to feel so that the subject slips under your skin like a blade. He makes an attempt to change the topic.

"Yeah, Pop gave me a talk about girls and stuff, and I've seen Keigo's coll... Sheesh. I'm not telling that to you. It's not that, either." They don't teach you to deal with the hard bits. Telling someone how you see them. What they mean to you. How they change the world just by being in it.

"I don't even wanna know what old beardo would do if I brought a... a girl home, like that. I wonder if you'd have reacted, you know, more normally? Like a sane parent?" A pause as he dwells on this indistinct idea. "Not that she's normal by any definition. Then again, you're the one who married Pop. I think you'd have got her. You'd get anybody."

He walks around the stone once, brushing a twig off the top. Now he's beating around the bush. "It doesn't stop there, though. There something... someone else, too. It's all so fucking strange. Sorry."

He blows on his cupped hands. He had gloves somewhere... A bit of rummaging reveals them in the pocket of his jacket.

"Right. The thing is—" Instinctively, he glances around. A pair of old women make their way down the stairs in the hillside, huffing and chattering, wrapped in colourful scarves. He waits until they're gone.

"This someone else—he's a guy. And a friend. A good one." He sighs. "I told you I was going away for a bit to find Rukia, remember? Ever since we got back, and they went to Soul Society and I came home..." The words seem to find form easier the further he gets. "Something's been different. We're still on our toes, what with the amnesia and everything.

"Only my friends think we're hooking up, Rukia and I. I sure don't know."

There's the way she's with Renji. Could be they were always that close, that comfortable. They've got a lot more in common, all that damn history.

"At least she comes by sometimes. Renji, though... He's too busy almost-captaining, and—and I miss him, for all that he's a smug bastard. Sorry, again."

The wind is kicking up, eddying the loose snow across the pathways. "Sometimes, I just want to see them both so bad. Like they're so damn important. Maybe it was just being out there, knowing you had to rely on them to make it at all." He shrugs, but it's not the careless motion it would usually be. Now they've gone to their world together, and I'm back here on my own.

He lets himself brood about that for three seconds.

"Anyway. Now the biggest thing I've got is the entrance exam." He sees the sidelong glances teachers give him at school; on one hand, he takes care not to give a damn, on the other, he worries. The college whose application he filled isn't top-notch, but it is respectable. "I need to kick ass on it, you know—or Pop's gonna kick mine. Wish me luck."

Because no one can see but her, he smiles lopsidedly. "That's it for now, Mom. I probably talked a lot. Thanks for listening."

* * *

The lock on the gate opens in a series of metallic snaps. Renji has to brace his shoulder against the gate to make it slide aside.

"Captain-General Ukitake said they just locked this place up after the war." He walks through the gate vault into the courtyard beyond. The aged evergreens in the middle spread their branches into the soft dawn air as if stretching after the night. "It's gonna need some overhaul."

Behind him, Hinamori tugs the key from the lock. "It looks so lifeless. No one's raked the pathways."

"There's a job for cheeky rookies." He closes his mouth as she comes up to him, her eyes big, as if trying to drink in the sight of the courtyard down to the last minute detail.

"We used to have patterns."

"You could make 'em scratch poetry in the sand." He laughs. "Then we'd have to walk on the lawns."

"Abarai-kun!" she chides, but her lips press together to hold back a smile. "Oh, but I can't say that anymore, can I?"

"Maybe not," he says. "Vice-Captain Momo."

"I didn't answer you yet." The tremor in her voice sobers the moment. She is in the black of a shinigami, but he has no idea what she's done with her badge. She turned up on his doorstep at first light, and asked only if he had the key to the Fifth Division headquarters.

It was as good a reason as any to make the venture he'd been delaying. Anyway, he's dangling between assignments, not yet transferred, but Captain Kuchiki is subtly saddling his third seat with a growing percentage of Renji's vice-captain duties.

"Let's look inside." He waves a hand at the main building. "Someone's gonna need to come through and check the structures, stuff like that, but... it's been a while since I was here."

Hinamori seems to drift past him. The Fifth is built around the semicircular courtyard, with the offices, barracks, storehouses and indoor training halls fanning out from the rim of the circle. Privately Renji wonders if it would be in bad taste to order the captain's quarters burned to the ground.

The layout of the division is familiar to them both; to his elation, she picks the door that leads to the junior officers' side. Blades of grass push through the rough planks of the veranda. Some of the storm-shutters have uncoiled from their fastenings, hanging in tattered curtains of latticework along the length of the deck.

With a few graceful gestures, Hinamori summons a fireball to light their way. He lets her enter before him. He's visiting, but she's... coming home, almost, returning from a dark roaming to a place she still holds dear.

They pass the empty offices: the blinds are lowered, the closets shut, the furniture covered up. Renji rakes long strings of cobwebs from his hair and takes care to duck in the next doorway.

"It's so quiet. Like a tomb," she says.

"That's a damn cheery image."

"Oh. I didn't mean..."

He pries open a sliding door into another room. The scent of old paper wafts into their nostrils, and their sandals stir up puffs of fine dust. "Think this would make an office yet?"

"I suppose—oh." A step into the room, she pauses, her gaze circling the space for a long, speechless moment. Bookcases cover the wall behind the desk with their rows of neatly alphabetised kidou monographs and volumes of division procedures and regulations. The low, polished table at the other end of the room is flat and grey with gathered dust, the sitting mats tucked under it. Someone has been through the room, set it to rights and allowed it to fall asleep.

Hinamori runs her hands over the sword rack on the desk, carved with a motif of flowering branches. Renji hangs back to wait for her reaction: it seems to unfold as she walks around the room and touches every familiar thing in turn.

"They didn't want me to come back," she murmurs. They could mean Captain Hitsugaya, or Captain Unohana, or any number of others. Shame soaks him at the knowledge that he was too harrowed by Rukia's loss to have minded her misery in the wake of the war.

"That's done now." He remains on his spot beside the desk. Moving past him, she goes to the door on the other side and pushes it open. Tension coils up his spine.

The vice-captain's office joins the captain's in every division. Cool air blows against them as the wood-framed screen slides away under her hand.

Is it all done now? No matter how much he wants her to have this moment for herself, he's observing her with every sense: her head dips, the braid of her hair flopping over her shoulder with the motion to bare the nape of her neck, as if in homage or surrender. The space ahead is shrouded in dust.

"Don't think anyone's been here," he begins inanely, "you know, in a dog's age. Everyone had a lot on their hands after..."

His voice falls as he realises he's justifying the neglect of the office more than anything. Hinamori's hand skims down along the edge of the door. Then she turns in the connecting doorway, the orb of flame bobbing next to her shoulder. Her spirit pressure lies still around her, hues of pink and deep plum mingling together, unruffled, sorrowful.

"Do you think we could leave this the way it is?"

"Why?" he can't help blurting out.

"Not... as a memento or shrine, no," she says. "As a reminder. It's a calm, pleasant... beautiful room, but the person it belonged to wasn't any of those things."

"Right." There seems to be a depth to her words he can't even comprehend. "Let... let me think on that a bit."

"So." She turns to him. "Do you think you could share an office until the renovations are done?"

"Don't see how I've got a choice." Renji lounges back against the wall. "I'm gonna need someone to show me the reins. Handle the paperwork. Draw up the accounts. Make sure the kids play nice while I rot in those neverendin' meetings."

She smiles, timorously, as if testing if her face can still form one. "I thought you had plenty of practice in the Sixth."

"I still gotta outdo the captain, remember?" He can almost make it a joke now. Enough time has passed to teach him that Kuchiki Byakuya is a man he's been proud to serve; he's looked at his captain and found himself quietly, but genuinely respected in return.

"I do." Hinamori pulls him from that fleeting detour and looks him in the eye, jaw set at a prim angle. "Let's do it, then."

Renji's never considered himself a tactile person. Now, he clasps her shoulders with both hands and grins down at her. "You do realise that's like a blanket permission to run ya ragged, Vice-Captain."

She lays her free hand over his, extracts herself from his grip, and a smile bows her mouth before she bends her head. "Just you try that, Abarai-kun. Just you try."

"Give it my best shot." It will take time and effort to dust out the phantoms clinging to the Fifth, but he's just been handed another reason to see this through.

* * *

The Sixth Division lies under an evening lull, only a couple of the office windows spilling lamplight onto the courtyard. Rukia gives the shinigami on watch a nod and slips towards the officers' living quarters. No one answers her knocks, so she lets herself into Renji's rooms. He seems to keep the door permanently unlocked, but with guards as zealous as in the Sixth, intruders vacate the premises at very respectable speed.

She lights a lantern and puts tea water to boil. Then she unbundles her book and makes herself comfortable in the sitting room; the space is partitioned into sleeping and living areas, with the kitchen branching off to the left from the doorway. Her first visit taught her that Renji isn't much one for culture: the bookshelf above his writing table seems to only hold reports and old textbooks, equipment tallies and the odd treatise on the warrior code, all in various stages of order. She's come better equipped for a wait this time.

She's worked through half the kettle and a good sheaf of pages by the time the door rattles. The flame in the lantern flares with the intrusion of cold air that swirls around the room before Renji pushes the screen shut behind him. "Oh, hey. You're here again."

"You still have no books," she says. "You said you'd get me some."

"Well, evenin' to you, too." He removes his gloves and haori; spring is on the way, but the evening chill can still be harsh. "Is that tea? Guess I'll have to forgive the intrusion."

Rukia rises to pour him a cup and refill her own. The powdered tea spreads into the water in a delicate green cloud.

"Thanks." His fingers brush her hand as he takes the cup. "You know, I don't really remember promisin' you that. I don't get much time for readin'. Were you expectin'... I dunno, Lament of the Lotus Empress?"

"Very glib. I'm surprised you even know the title." The entire three-volume series of verse sits in an ancient, hand-copied edition on her brother's shelf.

He tosses one of the sitting cushions down beside the table and folds down onto it, ankles crossed. "There's the Comfort of the Lotus Empress, too. That one's more to my tastes."

"Renji!" A scandalised snap in her tone, she mimicks tossing the tea at him, but refrains. The sound of his laughter is too much of a balm on her. "How did your patrol go?"

"Went all right. They're... they're good soldiers, the Fifth. Feels like they really wanna get back into the swing of things." Pride rings in his voice, whether he realises it or not.

"I should think so. No one likes to feel useless."

His hand halting halfway to bringing the cup to his mouth, Renji raises a brow at her.

"You'll do well by them, I'm sure," she says, trying to drag the conversation out of the hole her previous words opened. "I think... it'll be good for you, too. The captaincy."

"We're not there yet, Rukia."

"Do you know of anyone else they might name captain of the Fifth? The trial period is a formality."

"Right. And you know this because—"

"Working in the office of the Captain-General offers some benefits." She's seen the transcript of the captains' meeting in which the topic was discussed. While contentious, the final sum of the discussion delineated Abarai Renji as the top—if not only—choice as the next head of the Fifth. Even if not ideal, he's needed beyond question.

He is moving forward again. That seems to her one of his best qualities; the adamant will to live, to overcome hardship, to never admit defeat, for all that it stands at odds with the intimation that he once let the two of them drift apart.

Sometimes, she senses a nebulous distance, but as a thing of the past, something they have resolved by now. It shouldn't matter that she is effectively stuck on secretarial duty while he's facing a promotion. They still have these evenings, the sleepy closeness and comfort in one another's presence.

"What's that, by the way?" Renji says. "You got a book right there."

"Vice-Captain Ise's Record of the Winter War." She holds up the heavy volume. "She let me borrow an unedited copy. The students are apparently given a selective version of the truth?"

"Hey, we gotta protect their young minds so they're ripe for corruption when they graduate," he drawls. "Why the interest in history? You never were much of a bookworm."

"I had a good memory." She flashes a wry smile. "I have to know what happened. Captain Unohana says I may never remember."

"Yeah, gotcha. Whatever works for you."

They descend into silence after that. Renji pores over a stack of reports, stamping each one in the general area of the last page, sipping at his second cup of tea. She wriggles deeper into the cushions and Ise's crystalline analysis of Aizen Sousuke's infiltration and subversion of the infrastructure of Soul Society. They both find a snug slot inside the quiet.

The lantern has long since started to shimmer, the wick ravelling into the melted wax, when he speaks up. "S' pretty late."

"Are you on early shift again?" At his nod, she rises to tuck the book in her carrying cloth. "It's fine. I've read enough for one night. This is rather demanding material."

The expected benign jab at her intellectual proclivities doesn't come; he's watching her with hooded, uneasy eyes. "Ah... you're spendin' the night again?"

"I thought I might." After that first night she stole into his quarters, he's never commented on it, on her curling close as he goes to sleep, until morning. She can feel that source of solace begin to crumble, shaken by his words.

His shoulders are taut and squared. "You shouldn't. It's not really good for ya to stay here so much."

"I'm sorry?" She does her utmost to ignore the clench in her belly.

"No," he says. "I'm sorry. But you are Captain Kuchiki's sister, an' it's not helpin' anyone's reputation you've been seen comin' to my door. Stayin' the night. Well, we both know it's not like that, but... You know."

The icy lump sharpens into a shaft of anger. "I know. Do I truly, Renji?"

"You're still the lady of the Kuchiki, and I—" His throat moves as he swallows.

"That I do know!" She did not register rising, but she is now glowering down at him. "Now you are making me remember, as well, every moment we spend together?"

"Rukia, I..." His face is wide open, helpless, and she hates him for it with a force she did not think possible.

"I am not allowed to forget! They watch my every gesture in that house! It is a wonder I even manage to sleep alone!"

The barb is weak, yet it flies true. He flinches, does not look away. "I'm just tryin' to do right by you. I don't like it either, but you gotta think of—"

White-glowing fury mixes with a smothering upwelling of need inside her. You said you were my friend. You said you wanted me here. Both thoughts refuse to become words, the sounds like glue in her mouth.

"Indeed," she snaps. "Lock the last door in that golden cage and see she stays inside, this Lady Kuchiki! Do right by her!"

"Damn it—" He stumbles onto his feet and towards her. "No, Rukia, wait—"

This has happened before. The fact hits her even as she backs away towards the door, her sandals, her shawl, her book forgotten. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

"I am afraid I must take my leave," she bites out. "Good night, Acting Captain Abarai."

Not again. I have no choice.

"Rukia!"

She plunges into the courtyard, leaving behind his stunned face, the warmth of his quarters. Her feet patter over the sand, but only the surprised gate guard watches her whip out onto the street.

She doesn't even know if she is glad or devastated that Renji has not come after her.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Four: Ordinary
>> Part Twenty-Six: Tumble

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Four

2009-07-12T12:08:42Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: The three return to normal, only to discover normal requires redefinition. (6600 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, warnings, pairings etc. can be found here.

* * *

Twenty-Four: Ordinary

The white tower, alone on its high place, punctures the skyline of Seireitei. The view is striking from the cusp of the estate grounds, where the training fields are located.

The tower creeps onto the periphery of Rukia's sight as she moves through the kidou.

Singular and perfect, the pattern pours from her. It smashes into a stone practice target as a bright arc of lightning. She shoots the second bolt to her left—and then the pattern disintegrates, and the last one fizzes out into a burst of sparks.

"Not quite," she gasps out loud.

The last spell manifested. Shirayuki raises her head from among the pale yellow sand. That is progress. She lounges in the shade of a boulder some way behind Rukia. The northern end of the field is covered in rock formations to provide an element of challenge in weapons practice.

Rukia delves into her carrying cloth for a towel and water flask. The day is cool and cloudless, but she has driven herself through sword forms and kidou patterns all morning.

That tower. She buries her face in the towel to wipe off the sweat. Renji tells me it used to be a prison. But there's something more to it.

What do you mean?

I'm not sure. Whenever I see it, it chills me.

Come here. Shirayuki presses her head into Rukia's lap as she seats herself next to the bear. It is a clear day.

I still wish I knew, she says, though Shirayuki is warm and comfortable. It feels like... everyone's trying to wrap me up so nothing can touch me. She comes to think of her brother. Or pretending I don't exist.

Patience, Rukia.

In all things? she mimics her sword-spirit's curt nuances.

Indeed.

Rukia smooths her hand over Shirayuki's ears, the fur there downy in contrast to her thick, sleek coat. The gardens are still dominated by the hues of their winter garb, but the season seems mild here, unlike the harsh cold of the Tiangen peaks.

Someone stands on the edge of the sand field.

Shirayuki, Rukia warns. The bear looks at her, then melts out of sight.

She bows as her brother halts a few steps from her. "That was your sword-spirit," he says without preamble.

"Yes, niisama."

"This is a new development, Rukia. Your zanpakutou has never manifested for you before."

She hesitates, cognisant that he can see her indecision. "She... first showed herself to me in Yellow Springs. We travelled together."

"Showed herself to you?" She can't decipher the nuances in his timbre, but its surface cracks. "It is not a question of choice, but of your control over your sword."

Rukia raises her chin. "She comes when I call her, as a companion to stand beside me. Had I fought alone, I'd never have lived long enough to be found." There is something of Ichigo's audacity in her tone, but she can say this with certainty. Even her brother can't contest the truth of it.

"I see." That seems to conclude the matter.

"Show me the kidou." He tips his head towards the practice targets with their newly acquired scorch marks. "I have not seen you use such a form before."

She steps back and sets her hands together in the first ritual gesture. The incantation flows in a staccato beat from her lips as she wills the world to narrow down to the tightening pattern of energy.

Grace under pressure, my dear. Let us show them. The deep clarity of Shirayuki's voice mellows into something almost like a purr.

Them? Rukia feels sweat bead in the roots of her hair. The filaments of power fold through each other, drawn by the motions of her fingers.

The old man of the cherry tree is watching, Shirayuki hums. I can taste his doubt. I have none.

The first beam of crackling energy strikes the stone post. She fires the second and then the third in the same outlet of breath, expelling the kidou in smooth blows.

I did it, she tells herself dazedly.

After a beat of silence, her brother speaks again. "Who taught you this?"

Well done, comes Shirayuki's whisper. Rukia runs the edge of her sleeve over her sweaty brow.

"I... knew the principle of the double incantation," she begins. "I expanded upon the basic concept. I can go as high as two seventh-tier spells, but that quickly becomes straining. I assume the difficulty grows exponentially with every added spell. I was... testing how I would manage with three."

"It would be an effective tactic against multiple minor opponents. I will come observe your practice a week from now. You will meditate on this technique, and we will discuss it further."

"As you wish, niisama."

"One other thing. Give me your hand."

Obediently, she extends a hand towards him. His fingers are cool and dry as he bends two of her fingers down towards her palm. "There is a slight flaw in your sealing gesture. Do not curl the first joint of the finger. Like this."

She holds her breath as she nods. It feels all but surreal that he's touching her, even for such a pragmatic reason. She's sure such a moment would be impressed in her memory, even if—

Her brother stands over her, falling into her as his knees give way. The sky past his shoulder is an angry, deep blue. The sticky heat of his blood covers her hands. She tries, tries so hard to hold him up. She is so weak, but he took the blow for her, and she doesn't understand—

Rukia starts back; she controls herself just in time not to snatch her hand away. She pulls her fingers lightly from his grasp and reproduces the gesture as he showed her.

"Thank you for your instruction." She hides her twisted expression by bowing. "I'll do as you ask."

He gives her a nod and, turning on his heel, leaves her. She watches her brother as he recedes into a silhouette against the gardens, until she is alone, still trembling with the aftershock of the memory.

* * *

Renji steps into the patient room with his shoulders squared, feeling the weight of the cloth-wrapped object in his sleeve. He left away all marks of his rank save for Zabimaru.

The window is ajar into the gardens at the heart of the Fourth. The sole occupant sits on the bed, hands in her lap.

"Hey," he says.

She turns as if only now becoming cognisant of him. "Abarai-kun."

"They said you're doin' better. That a fact?"

"I suppose." Hinamori smiles wanly, as if the expression were a mask she only dons for his benefit. "You're back."

"Have been a while now. Mind if I sit?"

"Oh. Of course not." She shifts, but he folds cross-legged onto the floor, setting his sword down on his left side. Other than the bed, the room has few furnishings. Tobiume sits on a rack beside the bed; the only time a shinigami is parted from their sword is under imprisonment. Captain Unohana's medical opinion keeps Hinamori under observation, but Renji has a sense of a deeper constraint holding her here, in this stopped, austere place.

"Tell me," he says. "How're you doin'?" He knows he was absent after the war. Hinamori had her ghosts, he had his to contend with, although he has the unfair, wonderful advantage of having Rukia back again.

He's trying to repair a friendship and affirm a choice. Neither task is easier than the other.

"I'm recovering," she says. "Captain Unohana is hopeful I'll have my full strength back in the next month."

He already knows that, even as he nods. "Sounds good. Whatcha gonna do then? I mean—you must've thought about that, right?"

"Sometimes." Her eyes stray to the window. "The Fifth has no captain."

To his mind, she's the only person with the right to say that like a lament. Aizen had to be brought down; that Ichigo was the one to deliver the blow was incidental. It was a task accomplished with the deaths and sacrifices of many.

Still, loss is blind, grief is deaf, and the heart cares little for reason.

"What about a vice-captain?" he asks, anyway.

"They barred the gates. I wanted to go there, to... to see if I could find a few things. The headquarters were locked, and I couldn't get..." Her hands clutch at her robe. Someone—no one apparently knows for sure—cut into her soul sleep in the second battle in Karakura. Her long convalescence has been mostly due to the reluctant healing of her shinigami power.

"Hinamori," he says low. "Momo. Answer the question, okay?"

"No." She sounds hollow. "There's no one there."

"Know somethin'?" Renji heaves himself up from the floor, and drops to sit on the bed. She seems younger than he remembers, frail and haunted, but he wants to believe it's a facade, and one she can break in time. "There's gonna be."

The astonishment that animates her face is such a relief that he has to lower his eyes. "But... no one told me of this!"

"Hey, now. It's barely even official yet."

"Then how do you know?"

Has she sat here, waiting for something to punch the first crack in the wall of her seclusion? Is he up to the task?

"They offered me the captaincy." His hands wrap themselves into the bedsheet. "And I said yes."

"Oh." The sound drifts out through the oof her mouth. Then her lips cinch together, her shoulders hunching forward.

"Momo." He gropes for the gentleness of her name, unsure if he should have somehow softened the news.

"They would have. It's very reasonable. I can't do much in this condition." Her face is like aged china, a flat surface marred within. The Hinamori that Renji knows, that flared through for a moment, has receded beneath it.

Suddenly clumsy, he gets up, tucks his hand in his sleeve. She looks up at him. "Abarai-kun?"

"We need the Fifth back in action. We're gonna have the first new graduates soon, too. They've gotta get placed somewhere."

"Yes," Hinamori says. "Of course."

"So, I brought you this." Renji sets the wrapped vice-captain's badge on the bed. "You still want it, it's yours."

Then he turns and leaves her to contemplate his offer. Whatever happens, he's not taking that badge back if she throws it at him.

* * *

The year is about to change in the living world. Soul Society follows the same calendar, but the names of the months are so old no one among the living would recognise them.

It's snowing in great, gusty flurries, Karakura in the fast grip of midwinter. Rukia watches the darkness outside the shop window. Despite the snow outside, they're having ice cream, at Orihime's gentle insistence that, Rukia is finding out, is less a human quality and more a law of nature.

"You're too modest, Rukia-san." Orihime looks at her over the small, round table. Her ankles are wrapped around the chair's legs. Rukia sits poised, with her knees tucked together.

At this, she sucks her spoon clean and returns Orihime's gaze with some wonderment. "Pardon?"

"There are thirty-one flavours for a reason!" Orihime pushes her own cup across the table, heaped high with a rather more colourful section of ice cream varieties than Rukia's plain vanilla. "At least try the strawberry cheesecake. It's to die for—not literally, never fear. Please don't say 'pardon', it sounds so formal—unless it makes you feel better. I mean, that's why we're here."

Rukia dips her spoon in the red-swirled ball of ice cream and lets it melt on her tongue. It is delightful, but it would be awkward to say that when Orihime already treated her to one bowl. She has no living world money, and can't bring herself to mooch off anyone but Ichigo.

Ichigo has enough on his plate at the moment, and she's supposed to be enjoying herself. Orihime does make it easier than she thought. The other girl sidles from her chair, startling Rukia out of her reverie. "Ah, Orihime..."

"Could I have another cup of that, please? For my shy friend! Thank you very much."

Rukia blushes the colour of the strawberry spun into the ice cream as Orihime plunks the bowl down in front of her, easy as you please. "You shouldn't have."

"Pish-posh. People must be spoiled when they're sick. Not that you actually are, just a little lost. It happens to me all the time."

Just a little lost. Smiling briefly, she spoons up the ice cream, certain that it isn't the sweet treat that raises a bit in her throat.

"When was the film again?" she asks eventually, diverting Orihime's chatter.

"We still have plenty of time." Orihime taps her wristwatch. "I hope you like Godzilla. I haven't met too many girls who do, but you are extraordinary, Rukia-san. You do like horror stories, so that should help. Do you think we should see something different, after all?"

"Oh, no, I'm sure I'll enjoy it." Rukia pats her hand. Bewildered by the living world and Orihime's effortless kindness she may be, but she is sincere in this. There might be only one thing that would make her visit to Karakura even better.

They gather their things and step out into the snowfall, which has gentled into a dreamy dazzle of big, soft flakes under the streetlights. Rukia pushes herself into a question. "Orihime? If there's still time, you don't think we could ask Ichigo to join us? It is... Saturday, isn't it?"

"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's eyes deepen and brighten all at once. Her face seems to debate which expression to don before a cheerful smile smooths away the hesitation. "Well, the clinic isn't far."

"It's only—I haven't seen him in a while. All that school he missed." Rukia truncates the sentence, feeling guilt jab a needle into her ribs.

"It's all right." A warm gleam lingers in Orihime's demeanour. "Let's go!"

The Kurosaki Clinic is closed, but Orihime walks right up to the door and rings the bell. Rukia has just straightened her borrowed hat when a broad, black-bearded man flings the door wide with a noise that can only be described as a bellow of glee. "Oh, joyful day! My third daughter returns, and with the lovely Orihime-chan, no less! Delinquent son, you aren't worthy of such beauteous company, but here they are on our doorstep!"

"Good evening, Kurosaki-sensei." Unfazed, Orihime bows and enters. "How are you? And Karin-chan and Yuzu-chan?"

Clasping her hands before her, Rukia bows to the man who, she gauges, must be Ichigo's infamous father. She was supposed to come to his house; the plan got caught in the tangle of his hopelessly late schoolwork, and she let the matter lie. "Kurosaki-san, I'm glad to—"

She's swept up into a rib-crushing hug, spun up and around and deposited back onto her feet, all in less time than it takes to draw a breath. Kurosaki Isshin beams down at her not unlike a clement avalanche. "I've told you to call me Daddy, Rukia-chan! But you are forgiven."

"Is Kurosaki-kun home? We were passing by, and Rukia-san..." Orihime is either oblivious to or patently ignoring every incongruity in this welcome. "Kurosaki-sensei, you don't have to pretend to me that he was deathly ill all autumn. I am in the loop. I've always wanted to be able to say that!"

"My foolish son was diagnosed with a unique medical condition!" Rukia takes a step back as Isshin turns to the other girl. "Sapporoan saltating syphilis! A strain of the disease that causes the patient to leap vigorously—"

"Your hairy left hand I had anything like that." With determined strides, Ichigo leaps down the stairs and bowls his father over. Rukia comes face to face with him for the first time in a month as he scowls around the hall, one foot planted in the small of Isshin's back. "Hi, Rukia. Inoue. Wha—whatcha doing here?"

If he ever was flustered, his recovery is remarkable. Orihime shifts minutely towards Rukia, as if expecting her to pick up the explanation, although her smile never wavers.

"We're going to see a film," she says in her loftiest tone. "Do you want to come along?" This is silly. As lovely as Orihime is, Rukia can't yet reach the level of ease with her that Ichigo brings simply by entering the room. She wishes they were alone.

"A movie, huh?" He sidesteps as his father hauls himself up off the floor. "Ah, I do have some stuff to do—"

"Masaki, our foolish son is getting asked out by not one girl, but two! This is the happiest day of Daddy's life!"

"Never mind," Ichigo hisses. "Tactical retreat, exit stage left, chop chop! I'll get my jacket and meetcha out front." One hand on her shoulder, he spins her around towards the front door.

"Come on." She grabs Orihime's hand. If anyone has a mental scheme for handling this situation, Ichigo is her best bet.

Once they're outside, Orihime wilts against the glass door and gives Rukia a half laughing, half rueful look. "I'm... sorry, Rukia-san. Kurosaki-sensei is... quite a character. I should've remembered."

"I have to see this again, too." She smiles, more genuinely than she has all afternoon. "It's not your fault I'm so easily surprised. I want to know everything."

Orihime folds her fingers through Rukia's again. They speak no more until Ichigo slinks out through the door, more or less clad for the subfreezing weather, his colour a little high.

"Okay, coast is clear. Move out before they pursue. What are we gonna see?"

"Forward march!" With a laugh, Orihime saunters onward, throwing her booted feet high with each step. Rukia is caught scampering after her, smothering startled giggles into her glove.

"Ah—Orihime, wait! Godzilla," she replies to Ichigo and, on an impulse, slides her free hand through his arm. He gives her a glance, but she feels him adjust to her nearness.

"Godzilla," he says. "Sounds great."

They walk down the road, settling into a comfortable pace for all three of them. Orihime and Ichigo begin a conversation over her head, about school and grades and study circles; Rukia stays between them all the way to the theatre, letting the sound of their voices float over her.

* * *

After the New Year, Orihime insists on arranging a welcome back party. Caught, as is becoming common, by the girl's world-embracing goodwill, Rukia can only nod and accept when the plans are laid out to her. "You won't do a thing, of course! I'll take care of everything, and Tatsuki-chan and Ishida-kun promised to help, too."

Orihime's home—a new one, Rukia understands—seems small for all the people who have come. She sits ramrod straight in the corner of the merrily red sofa, and smiles at everyone who approaches. A respectable array of foodstuffs, from familiar norimaki and odango to half a dozen sorts of snacks she's never seen before is spread out on the kitchen table. Since they came in, Ichigo's been hailed by friends left and right; she can hear him snapping at someone in the kitchen. Orihime's voice lilts up in response, defusing whatever tiff was forming.

"Kuchiki-san looks as radiant as always!" Her drink sloshes in the glass as she whips towards the voice. A grinning young man is leaning over the armrest at her. She knows his name, Ichigo pointed him out to her earlier...

"Ah!" She pulls herself even straighter. "Good evening, Asano-kun." He is one of those who know of Ichigo's double life, but she withdraws into politeness.

"Keigo's fine," Ichigo said. "Just put everything he says through a double-strength bullshit filter and you'll be pretty close to the truth. Especially when he talks to girls at parties."

"D'you mind if I sit here?" Asano tumbles into the seat beside her. "Mizuiro brought the new Bad Shield game, we thought we 'd try it."

"No, please do." She peers at the plastic case in his hand. "What sort of game is that?"

The Kurosaki household has one of these console gadgets. When it's on, the result is either intense staring or loud arguments. Nonetheless, she smiles and nods as Asano launches into an explanation, and accepts the controller as he sets it in her hands. Nothing good will come of shrinking from these people, especially Ichigo's friends.

"Kuchiki-san is doing wonderfully!" She grits her teeth and tries to keep straight which button is an attack and which one an evasive manoeuvre. Her glowering, brightly dressed character gives a very unconvincing death rattle, dropping onto the floor of the improbable-looking arena. Rukia looks up at her guide.

"Ah, I'm not quite sure I am, Asano-kun."

"That's the training mode, it can be kind of crazy until you—see here—" He reaches for a hold of the controller. "Your natural athletic potential will prevail!"

"What d'you think you're doing, Keigo?" Appearing behind them, Ichigo jerks the boy away by the neck of his shirt. Her eyes must have gone wide, because his voice softens. "Look, Rukia, sorry. Inoue means well, but I guess she thinks you've got a few more close friends than..."

The solicitous aura suits him ill. "It's fine, you fool. You can stop hovering."

"I'm not hovering." He slides into the seat Asano vacated, shoving his friend away as if for good measure.

She snaps the controller lightly against his temple, returning his scowl with an equal one of her own. So she was a tad flustered. That hardly excuses his mother-henning, and it nettles her even more as she realises she's relieved by his presence. "You were gone a long time, too," she says. "Shouldn't you be spending time with your friends?"

"I see 'em every day at school." His shrug is probably supposed to prove his point. "Speaking of seeing people—where's Renji? Thought he was gonna join us." His eyes veer to the side, a sign of nerves, although she can't pinpoint the cause.

"He will. I got a message. There was a situation at the Sixth—something about a squad not reporting in." Renji is, after all, the one with actual responsibilities to his division.

"Oh, okay."

"In any case, this is incomprehensible." She indicates the television and console with a flick of her hand. "How do you derive amusement from something so—convoluted?"

"You just don't have practice. Let me." His arm slides behind her shoulders as he cups his hands around hers on the controller. "You aim with this, and shoot with this, and duck with that. Same controls as the last game. Start there."

The bright avatar on the screen responds rather more jerkily to her tries than to Ichigo's effortless guidance. She purses her mouth in concentration. A certain command prompts a certain action. It seems this, too, can be mastered with repetition.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"You'll be good now?" He pushes himself onto his feet.

"Yes, Ichigo." For a heartbeat, she misses the arch of his body behind her, feeling exposed as his hand leaves her shoulder. It is her party. She's supposed to have a good time, not hide behind Ichigo.

Plastering a smile on her face, she looks about. "Asano-kun? Are you still—could I try again?"

* * *

Ichigo cracks open the back door to Inoue's building. The air washes over him damp and sleety, yet refreshing after the flat. People were staring. Only too late, he realised he'd bent over Rukia to show her the controls, deep in her personal space.

It was once told in the school hallways that Kurosaki and Kuchiki had a thing going on. He's willing to bet a body part—a nonessential one—that any time now, those rumours are going to crawl from their grave to haunt him all over the school yard and the arcade and the karate club. And some other places, too.

"Kuchiki smacked Kurosaki over the head at her homecoming party! What's the deal with them?"

"He was all over her, an' everybody saw! Though what else can you expect from a punk like Kurosaki?"

"She calls him by first name! What does an exotic beauty like Kuchiki Rukia see in Kurosaki—"

"Ichigo!" The voice, acerbic and familiar, penetrates the stew of hair-raising hearsay his brain is concocting. "You deaf?"

"Ah, hey." He shifts to make room for Tatsuki in the doorway. The rain is turning into snow as the evening cold hardens. It won't linger; the flakes are swallowed by the wet grey of the asphalt as soon as they alight. "I was thinking."

"Those were some pretty deep thoughts. I called you at least three times."

"Would've kicked me next, eh?"

"You bet."

"Thanks. For not doing that."He scuffs his shoe against the threshold. She leans back against the glass of the doorway.

"I'll save that for practice. You are coming on Tuesday, right?" He's not quite sure what made him return, after having quit years earlier, but the karate club has given him and Tatsuki back some common ground. Until the ragged return from Hueco Mundo, he hadn't even known she'd been able to see spirits for months. It hasn't been an easy way back.

"Can't see any reason not to." Tatsuki is nowhere near as spiritually strong as Chad or Inoue, but on the tatami, she's a match for him.

"Not gonna sneak off with Kuchiki?"

"Can I just point out it's nothing like that?"

"No?" She lowers her voice, but her tone delivers a plain message of not taking any crap, thank you very much. "I know you still got one foot in Soul Society. Maybe that's never gonna change. I'm done blaming you for that, so that's fine. But in case you didn't notice, the way you guys clung to each other back there, someone's gonna start talking."

"Why d'you think I had to sneak out?"

"Couldn't blame you. Keigo hitting on Kuchiki was pretty atrocious to watch."

"Hmph." Despite himself, the sound becomes part a laugh. "Rukia's immune to flirting, you know. And that's weird, 'cause she's so damn naive a lot of the—oh, crap. Don't tell me what that sounded like."

"I won't. I know you. You're already beating yourself up about it."

"It's not like it's anybody else's business, though."

She doesn't answer immediately, as if letting her reply gather momentum. She has no coat on, so he strips off his jacket and dangles it out to her.

"Dumbass." She wraps the jacket over her bare shoulders.

"I'm not standing in the snow without sleeves."

"Stuff it." She tugs up the zipper. "You're thick as... I dunno, a cement block, and that's the reason I'm trying to have a serious talk with you. In the snow. Don't ask why I bother. You wanna go sit in the corridor?"

"Beats freezing our toes off."

"I wanna get this said before they miss us, so move it." She jostles him in through the door, but keeps possession of his jacket as they seat themselves on the stairs, avoiding the streaks of slushy footprints.

He takes a lot more from Tatsuki than his average for people—more or less fourteen years of friendship builds your tolerance. However, during this conversation, he's expected her to illustrate her point with a few friendly wallops to any reachable parts of his body. It sort of worries him that she hasn't. He's used to her being one of the guys. She's sliding away towards something feminine and unreadable.

"So?" He arches an eyebrow at her. "What's so important you gotta sneak after me?"

"You and Kuchiki. Give this one thing to me straight. What's the deal with you two?"

"More water for the rumour mill, huh?"

She yanks him towards her by the scruff of his neck. Her face scrunches up, her teeth rasping over her lip.

"Okay." He blows out a breath. "That was pretty stupid of me."

Her fingers unclench to let him sit upright again. "I'm not asking 'cause I'm curious. Are you gonna answer me?"

If it came from almost anyone else, he'd block the question with cocky silence or a snappy rejoinder. "She's back. That's good."

"And that tells me... what?"

"You figure that out! That's all I know. I don't... well, how'd you feel when we brought Inoue back?"

Tatsuki glances at her folded hands. "I can relate to that. So you're just happy Kuchiki's home safe and sound."

"Mm-hm."

"I'm really trying to cut back on the interrogative impulses here, Ichigo."

"You sound like you already got this figured out. So why ask me?"

" 'Cause I can, and 'cause you're an idiot who wouldn't know what do with a girl if she fell gift-wrapped in your lap." She grabs his arm before he can rise. "I'm serious."

"I am so gonna kick your ass."

"You can try. Later." She releases him slowly, once his muscles have unknotted under her fingers. "Listen up. Chase Kuchiki to the ends of the earth for all I care. That's what you keep on doing, anyway. Might as well give you my blessing."

He lets his head bow, the heat fading from his expression. "Sheesh, thanks." He doesn't sound as sardonic as he meant to.

"I'd go nuts trying to live like you. Considering your Dad, I guess there's a sorta logic there, though."

"You're basing a rational conclusion on my Pop?"

"Come on." She purses her mouth, one side of it quirking up. "More importantly; you're a dumbass, but you're not a jerk. So there's one other thing we need to set straight."

He sighs, considers the option of running away to Soul Society and joining the Eleventh, where there'd be less incomprehensible girls around, and comes to his senses. "Fine. Spill."

His mouth drops open as she fixes him with a steely look and says, "Orihime."

* * *

Tatsuki leaves him sitting on the stairs and climbs back to the flat, feet soft and shuffling. He's had a completely inadequate span of time to wallow in his newfound misery when a blare sounds from his pocket.

"Hoolloows—Hoolloows—Hoolloows—" his shinigami badge wails.

"Oh, crap." He bounds up the stairs three at a time. He can't leave his body lying in the stairway. That means going back to the flat, which opens too many new venues of anxiety for him to contemplate right now. Swearing, he leans on the doorbell.

Inoue whisks the door open. "I'm coming, I'm coming! Um, Kurosaki-kun?"

He speeds right past her to conceal the fetching beet shade that flushes his cheeks at the sight of her. "She's had it bad for you for years, and you don't have a clue." Damn Tatsuki. "Later, Inoue!"

Rounding the corner into the living room, he skids into a halt. There are still some people here blissfully ignorant of the soul-gobbling monsters in their midst. Yeah. "Oi, Rukia!"

"What?" She keeps her eyes on the screen. "I was just about to—ha!"

"Hollows," he whispers, brandishing the howling badge in front of her. Tatsuki pokes her head in through the kitchen doorway, but most of the others lounging around the room only glance up from their own conversations. Of course, they can't hear the doomsday noise of the badge.

"More'n one?" In a lazy motion, Renji looks up over the back of the sofa and throws Ichigo entirely off gear.

"Uh, yeah. Hey." He gestures lamely. "When'd you get here?"

"Said I'd come soon as I could."

"What, through the window?"

Laughter ripples up from Renji's throat. "Maybe. Where've you been?"

"Hollows?" Robbing Ichigo of a chance to answer, Rukia grabs the badge from him. On the TV, her abandoned sharpshooter is decimated by his training opponent. "This thing shows no numbers. Renji, have you seen my phone?"

Renji holds out her communicator from the coffee table. Ichigo presses the heels of his palms to his temples; he doesn't even know whether he's grateful for her intercession or irritated that he even came back with the Hollow alert. "Are we all gonna go? Let's make it a party game! Hey, Ishida, you want to—"

"Ishida-kun already left," Inoue says in an undertone from behind him. "Should I come, just in case?"

Rukia has peeled back from her false body, more than a little out of place in shinigami black among the warm colours of the room. Ichigo bites back a grimace, wishing she'd at least have ducked into Inoue's bedroom to exit her body. She leans over Renji to see the display of her phone. "There are eight. All big ones. Very close. Keep playing that," she instructs her gigai.

"Thanks, Orihime. We'll try not to get banged up too much." Renji throws Inoue a grin before turning towards Ichigo. "You, me, Rukia; that should do it. C'mon."

With only a nod, he follows. Despite everything—Tatsuki's wake-up call, his uncertainty with Rukia, Renji's abrupt presence stirring the situation further—this is still simple and clean: they respond to the threat together.

* * *

Eight sizable Hollows prowl the block just behind Inoue's building.

It goes so effortlessly he could weep. Okay, not weep, but the smoothness of the combat is a fucking relief after all the social stress heaped on him tonight. Even though one, if not two, of its major sources are there wiping the street with Hollows right alongside him.

Rukia pins two with well-aimed icicles through their scaly backs, and he flashes by to shatter their masks before leaping at the largest one. Renji occupies the smallest four of the creatures until they converge on him in a second of slipped focus. Zabimaru coils out to tear through them, but the pain washing hot and stark through Renji's reiatsu sends out an unmistakable alarm.

"Rukia!" Ichigo knows he'll need to dive close into the snarl of thrashing Hollow limbs and Zabimaru's lashing sinews that's formed atop a building. A Getsuga from this range will result in friendly fire, and Renji is already hurt.

"Leave this to me!" Her sword shears through another gape-jawed mask, leaving only the four Hollows surrounding Renji.

He rushes into shunpo, cracking Zangetsu down hard on the side of the nearest one. They're tough-hided and agile, somewhat resembling chalky, overgrown salamanders. The creature whips around in place, its snout mottled with blood, and rears to rake at him. He hears Renji swear, but has no time for a look around as he springs upward a step and soars on the momentum to despatch the Hollow with a blow that cleaves its head in two. It tumbles down the side of the building, disintegrating as it goes.

Movement flurries above him. Rukia's voice rises into an incantation, her power fanning out into a net, and he sees what's happening even as it is already over. Renji has stumbled, a ragged sleeve trailing his limp arm as he falls, but a silvery web of kidou snatches him to safety before he can hit the street below. He's yelling at her; she shoots back something biting and familiar. A swift sweep of the roof declares the struggle all but over. Two white shapes are crumbling into dust, so Ichigo hurries over to the last one, its body almost severed in two, and finishes the fight in a clean stroke across its mask.

It's done once more.

"He got them!" he shouts at the others, even as he leaps down to the street.

Seated on the ground, Renji sheathes Zabimaru less than gracefully, his left arm hanging slack and bloodied. "Hey, m'not that rusty yet! Better close that jaw before it falls off, wiseass."

"I—" He lets his lungs empty with a dragging sigh. "You wish, jerkface. How many bones did you break this time?"

"Just the one in the arm." Renji grins insufferably through the gathering sheen of sweat on his face.

"And the bruised ribs," Rukia says, whisking Shirayuki clean before returning her to her scabbard. "We should report this. Was it just me, or was the alert late?"

"I'd say so." Renji glances at her. "Everyone's understaffed, but Karakura's still a high-risk area. Remind me to mention that tomorrow." He tugs at his ripped sleeve, and Ichigo sees only now how his kimono sticks to his left side as well, the fabric heavy with blood.

"We better get you inside." He crouches down on Renji's good side. "Inoue's gonna want a look at that."

"Might not be a bad idea."

"I'll go and get her," Rukia says. "Orihime, that is. We don't want all of them to see, and you shouldn't move more than you have to." She takes off at a dash around the building.

"The bastards were fast," Renji grumbles. His breathing sounds unobstructed, so while he is in pain, the ribs haven't stabbed deep inward. He'll be all right. They just need to wait a while.

"It was—" Ichigo nearly leans forward, touches his brow to Renji's, or grasps his wrist in that quick, strong grip that communicates support and reliance, back and forth, freely given. He offers a rueful grin instead. "A bit off your game tonight, huh? Being home dulled your edge so fast?"

"It was good seeing you, for the three minutes before that Hollow ripped you a new one"? That's what you wanted to say, you wuss.

"Shut your trap, Ichigo." Renji makes to shove at him. "I got more of 'em than you."

"We back to the head count game, then?" He turns away to seal his sword; while he's honed the simple task, it doesn't seem to come as instinctively as to everyone else. He still needs to focus for a heartbeat to make Zangetsu shrink into the slim katana shape. "Thought that was old hat."

"I didn't start it." There's no way to verify Renji's claim. Ichigo doesn't even want to argue. This whole night seems backwards; what was supposed to be a reunion with friends has so far worked only to widen the gaps between, his ease with Rukia compromised, and even his camaraderie with Renji somehow absent, as if the several weeks passed without contact were enough to wipe it away.

He is clumsy with both of his friends, as if now that the deathly danger has passed there were nothing to bind them anymore.

That isn't it, he understands as soon as the thought dawns on him. There are bonds, but he's afraid to see where they run. Renji is eyeing him sidelong; he stands up with a deep exhalation to avoid his gaze.

It was good seeing you. I wish you weren't going so soon.

"Shit," he mumbles, the word thankfully drowned by the stomp of running feet.

"Kurosaki-kun! Renji-kun!" Then Inoue is there, calm and concerned, Rukia on her heels, and he can just step aside to let her work.

He needs to speak to someone sane.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Three: Remnant
>> Part Twenty-Five: Self-Inflicted

Music Time (Once More With Feeling):

Part 20: Jack Wall/Jade Empire OST: Empire at War (the bridge) | click
Part 20: Bear McCreary/Battlestar Galactica OST: Worthy of Survival (retribution) | click
Part 21: Carpark North: Fireworks (Rukia's dilemma) | click
Part 22: Jack Wall & Sam Hulick/Mass Effect OST: M4 Part 2 (Faunts) (waiting for Ichigo) | click
Part 23: SINCH: Identity Theft (negotiation) | click
Part 24: Heather Nova: Spirit in You (return to normal) | click

The TAR Challenge, week 2: the round-up

2009-06-28T07:09:24Z

Word count for the week: 1737 words
Stories worked on: The Roots of Heaven (954 words), Ghost of the Sun (633 words), Washed on your shore (150 words plus a lot of scene-planning)
Stories posted: Roots, part 23. Are we there yet?
Hours spent perusing inspirational fan art: Too many. 'Pea is good for me, but it's all too easy to spend writing time discussing the relative merits of yaoi conventions in BL art and why Aino likes it more when there's less of them.
Hours of productivity lost to heat wave: At least a full day. Guess where the dystopic scorched earth AU inspiration came from.
WORDS I AM SHORT THIS WEEK: 63. Ehh. Next week, we aim for 1863. Additional punishment may be decided by the other Ladies of the Challenge.

If I don't write anything based on this art before the end of the challenge then something is wrong with the world. There is a story there and so help me I will find it. ('Pea graciously educated me on the significance: that's the Sun Wukong mask from the Beijing Opera. Renji as the Monkey God. Story, I tell you.)

Ficbits under a filter here.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Three

2009-06-27T13:22:51Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Mature (R) for language
In This Part: Ichigo sorts through old grudges, old friends, and an old man. (3100 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Twenty-Three: Remnant

Ichigo falls out of bed and clean through the floor.

Something engulfs him with a sinewy creak—leather. He twists into a sitting position, rubbing at his neck. "What in the hell?"

A table of reddish, polished wood stretches before him. The entire length of it is set aglow by the sun through wall-sized windows; the meeting room hangs sideways, still and immaculate, another armchair standing at the far end of the table. He scrambles up, for a moment disoriented by the peculiar gravity of his inner world.

He's back in the city that is his soul.

"Good morning, partner! Welcome to the opening and also definitely closing negotiations on the business property of your soul!"

"What?" he gasps again.

Tawny eyes light up in the shadow nestled in the opposing chair, and then the Hollow uncoils from his seat. His face holds a lean, hungry look, but his voice is flawless. "That's what you promised. The price of all your lives, twice over."

"You want to talk?"

"Yes!" The Hollow pounces, lands in a crouch and shoots out a hand to pinion Ichigo's neck to the chair. Their faces are inches apart, the shock of the movement still reverberating through him as the Hollow launches forward, "I should claw you apart. I should splatter the streets with your blood. I should tear out your guts and wear them for a hat, partner!"

Hot and astonished, ire pours through him. Planting a foot in the Hollow's midsection, he sends him skidding back along the table.

"Who the hell took a piss in your tea?" Hoisting himself onto the burnished surface after the staggering Hollow, he shouts straight in its chalky face. "I said I'd fight you! Fucking give me a fight and stop—prevaricating!"

"You still don't get it." The Hollow scoffs. "You used me to do your dirty work in the war, and when you were done, you went mewling to your shinigami allies and let them seal me away. You don't get a fight from me. Snivelling coward."

"That coming from you," Ichigo retorts. "You have the damned gall to accuse me of backstabbing. Who struck first? Who waited 'til I was weak and jumped on me, huh? You got no ground to talk, you bastard."

"I'm a Hollow." His eyes flash with malicious caprice. "It's what I do. But I'm not your dark side, I'm not your twisted image in the mirror. You can't pretend forever."

Ichigo's mouth snaps shut on a cheeky reply that shrivels on his tongue.

In the wake of Soul Society's victory, his hands wet with blood, Karakura drowned in shadow and sorrow, Rukia gone, he'd almost been glad to follow Captain Unohana's advice. The Hollow would sleep—extricating it entirely, only a theoretical possibility, would have damaged his shinigami power—and he would lose access to his Visored abilities, but his mind would be his own. It had seemed a fair price for peace.

"Pretend what?" He glares down at the Hollow, still sprawled down from his blow. "I didn't need your help to kill."

"You can always tell yourself the old lies," the Hollow chuckles. "He wasn't human by the time you got to him. More mad god than man, bent on destroying your home. Too far gone for salvation, even by the hand of the great Kurosaki Ichi—"

"Shut up!" Maybe it's just his own name from the Hollow's mouth that's unbearable, rather than the dim memories of their last stand against Aizen Sousuke. "What is your point, goddamn it?"

"Well, you complained about losing my power. You as good as told me you needed me." The Hollow's grin is triumphant; his curved nails clack on the table. "The king needs the horse to pull his weight after all, huh?"

"Is it gonna make you happy if I say, yeah, you're absolutely fucking right?" The truth rankles, yet he can't deny it. Without the Hollow's power they would all have died: Rukia, Renji, Ichigo himself. "What do you want, then? An equal share?" he huffs, with consternation.

The Hollow laughs, bone scraping bone, shrapnels of mirth grating together. "I could take more. Do you even know where you are now, partner? Would you like to know?"

"You wouldn't have a prayer." Slackening back onto his haunches, Ichigo raises his head. "Because they know." He schools his face into the faintest of smirks, not because he thinks himself clever, but because this truth is simple and yet alien to the Hollow. "Renji, Rukia, Chad, Ishida, even Inoue—they all know. If you so much as twitched towards some takeover plan, they'd deal with you."

"We'd both be killed," the Hollow observes drily.

"Yeah."

"You'd roll over like a lame beast and let them cut your throat, partner? Really?"

"Better than letting you run free." His shoulders stiffen.

Still crouched, the Hollow braces a hand on the smooth wood and sweeps Ichigo's feet out from under him with a swift, precise kick. He tumbles hard onto his rump. "You fool."

In a flurry, the sandal connects again. His head snaps back and he stumbles across the table into the cool glass of the window.

"Imbecile. Complete and utter fuckwit."

Ichigo can only blink through the stunned haze. Damn, but that hurt. His ears ring, but not loud enough to block out the Hollow's blistering voice.

"I. Am. You." He shoves a foot into Ichigo's chest. "Climb down from your high horse, it's already dead. Mixed fucking metaphors notwithstanding, it's time to lose the heroic angst. You got back Shirayuki's little bitch-cub—"

With a guttural growl, Ichigo heaves the lanky leg away from him, diving for the Hollow's throat. It's tempting, toying, goading, don't mind it— His self-control loses this debate.

The Hollow's fingers clench around his wrists and wrench his Ichigo's wide. They are the same; straining against the Hollow's strength drives that point home unlike any of his words before.

"It's time to take back the rest, partner," he whispers into the crackling tension between them. "You lied, you cheated, you killed. You'll do all of it again if it means her safety, or his. Oh, but you killed for even less; just because she led you there."

There are places in them—him and the Hollow—that Ichigo desperately hopes the other can't reach. In this, their memory is one: there is a mountain road above a deep valley, the startling sight of a soldier still astride a screaming horse tumbling into the blanket of the trees below. Urgent and impersonal as it was, the death is still on his hands.

"Yeah," he says, very low. "So what?"

"So accept it!" The Hollow snaps. "I'm not some dark drawer for stowing your sins. Stop the fuck pretending otherwise. You make me sick."

His hands relax fraction by fraction, clenched so hard it hurts to let go. Then they stand still, no longer touching, facing each other.

"No more seals, then."

"No fucking way."

"So... we're gonna do this the old-fashioned way."

"Ah—no. A fight's not gonna cut it. I'm the price of your power, partner—love you, love your Hollow, eh? I'm going nowhere."

"Right," Ichigo breathes. "You'll let me wake up. I got a life out there."

"Occasionally entertaining, yeah," the Hollow condones. "More fun when you actually admit what you want. That high horse—really makes you look pompous."

"Shut it, sucker. If we are the same, two in one, whatever the crap, then this is a two-way street, too."

"Now this should be priceless." The wide, mocking mouth twists in what seems to be honest amusement. "Keep going."

"I will not fear you," Ichigo says. "I'll let you fight when there's cause, but... I'm not gonna go looking for a scuffle just 'cause you're bored or something." His teeth grit briefly, then he makes himself stand at ease, alert, aware.

"Fair enough." The words rasp. "I'm a weapon. Maybe now you finally get it."

"As for all the... dark side bullshit," he sighs, "I'll remember what you said." Not that he is certain what to do about it. It was more comfortably considering the Hollow something parasitic and foreign, a monster caged inside him, used by him, but not truly of him.

That seems to have to change.

The Hollow laughs again. "Always so damn serious, partner. You keep on doing that, and I'll skulk in my corners. You'll know when I want you. I promise."

"That's all you have for me?"

The Hollow's hand whips out like a serpent, the nails poised on the skin of Ichigo's throat before he can even twitch. "Yes, king, that's precisely what you're gonna get. You don't get guarantees." The flat inside of one nail taps on a pulse point, where the jugular rushes with blood. "You fucked me over—and now you earn my trust." He lets go and takes a step back, languid as a well-fed beast. "That's the price of your duplicity. That's fair."

He can only stand still and listen. It's not fright or paralysis that holds him in place.

"I go free." The Hollow's footfalls are fading, becoming only errant echoes in the air. "You look yourself in the eye and see what stares back."

His heart hammers as he nods once. I understand. We both get to live with the other, so better start coping. He doesn't feel himself hit the table, nor hear the sound of his world folding away into the mists in between.

* * *

Blurred light and shadow move before his eyes.

"Kurosaki-kun?" The rich shade of Inoue's hair, her face a haze.

"Hey, you there?" Renji's unvarnished, sandy tone.

"Ichigo." Across from Inoue, Rukia's raven head bends over him.

He more feels than sees them, the colours of their auras fluttering against each other. He closes his eyes to focus on them better. There's a steadfast grip around his wrist, locking him into the world, into this circle of people he's most missed.

"Inoue," he mumbles; her presence means they made it. "Hi. Where's this?"

"You're in the Fourth Division," she replies. "You'll be all right, Kurosaki-kun."

"You got family waitin'," Renji says more softly. "Soon as you're on your feet."

He would go right now, go back to Karin's scowling welcome and Yuzu's frantic hugs, dodging his father on the way—and to sniping at Ishida, to Chad's unquestioning, solid silence that opens to make a place for him, to Tatsuki, who knew, this time, why he left. And all and everyone else.

Back to Karakura.

"Now you should rest," Rukia says. Is that her hand, combing through his hair, snagging on tangles? "Captain Unohana will be over to see you later."

How long has he lain in this bed? "What... time is it? What day?" They left an age ago, a world away.

"November seventh," Inoue says. "A hundred and eight days since you left."

He has to let out a hoarse laugh. It hurts. "You—you kept count?"

"I promised I'd look out for you, right?"

"Yeah. You did. So tell me, how'd I do on the summer midterms?"

"You passed, Kurosaki-kun." There's a smile in her voice. "Don't worry. We've got it all covered."

"Okay, I'm not gonna ask how you pulled that off." He raises a hand—hell, but he feels more like a clump of overboiled noodles than a functional human body—to scratch at his hair, only to have his fingers collide with Rukia's. He blinks his eyes open.

"Uh," he manages. Her hand curls gently away from his. He fixes his attention back on Inoue. "Right. No questions. So, I am actually gonna have to worry about college."

"Of course," she says, a little too loud. "After you've worried about regaining your strength."

"Afraid I'm gonna escape from under all your watchful eyes?"

"Don't even think about any such thing," Rukia says. "We're taking turns. Your friends come by whenever they can. Except for Orihime, of course."

Inoue's hair slants down to cover her cheeks. "I'm the doctor. Or, as good as. The closest thing. You can't just leave a patient."

There's a mushy weight in his chest as he wills his eyes to focus on her. He pats her forearm a couple of times. It's not something he would have thought of doing before. "Thanks. Much better now."

Her fingers seem to tremble as she lays them over his on her arm. "We... we were just waiting for Tatsuki-chan. If you feel like staying awake."

He realises that Rukia's hand has sneaked back on his head, and that Renji has leaned back without relinquishing his grasp of his wrist. Damn them all. They are there, and even though the whole sentiment is as soppy as it is wonderful, he can't imagine anything feeling better.

"Sure," he says. "Could do with that."

It's as close to home as he's been in a long while.

* * *

A snowfall cloaks Seireitei as Ichigo steps out of the gate of the Fourth Division headquarters. The storm-shutters are drawn around the verandas along the street. Rukia parts from the shelter of the gateway, wrapped in a haori. The hood covering her head is hemmed by clustering snowflakes. Shirayuki hangs at her side by a sash looped over her shoulder.

"I wanted to see you off." She comes up to him, almost strange in the fine kimono after he's seen her in utilitarian travelling clothes for so long. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, hey." He shrugs to seem nonchalant. "I'm good. I mean, it's over. It's fine. We... made a deal."

"I see." Her tone is veiled. "If you say so."

"Uh, Rukia..." He finds himself stymied. Before, she never approved of the Hollow, even while grudgingly admitting the advantage of his powers. Her resistance might have decided him when Captain Unohana told him that in her opinion, his Hollow powers should be sealed for the rest of his life. It'd felt like honouring her memory.

Not, as it turned out, a viable solution. He's still figuring out the reality of this new arrangement. Rukia is here and, to all appearances, recovering.

"So. Will you need assistance with the butterfly?"

"Rukia, listen. I would've told you about the Hollow." He speaks against his self-preservation instinct. "I swear, I was going to. Anyway, you knew, you just didn't know you—"

"You fool." Her voice could open a wound. "You great lummox." She hauls him down by the front of his robes. "I forgive you this time. Don't you ever keep something like that from me again!"

"Ouch, don't manhandle the patient!" He unknots her hand from his collar. "That doesn't sound too forgiving, you know!"

"Would you like me to say what I really thought?" She sounds a bit watery. To this day, he's seen her cry exactly three times. Every time, someone was about to die. He'd prefer to live, as it were.

"I can guess well enough. You probably even have a couple new names to call me."

"I was made to lie in a bed for two weeks. I had a while to hone this speech."

"Then just file it away. I'll manage something to get you mad later."

"Not like this, Ichigo!" She whacks the heel of her palm against his chest. "I should be kicking you down this street! And you should be going home."

"Rukia, listen." He takes hold of her shoulder. "I'm sorry." Her glower is as fierce as ever, but her jaw quivers. She's always assumed privileges about his personal space, so he's never questioned them. Now he returns the assumption by squeezing her close. It is a thank-you hug, a friend hug, a comfort hug—he can't let himself think of her otherwise now.

She sniffs against his shoulder. "Apology accepted. Idiot."

"Twit."

"Oaf." She wraps her arms around his waist. "Numbskull. Ingrate."

"That's laying it a bit thick, Rukia."

"You deserve it." They stay there for a moment, holding each other in the slowly falling snow.

* * *

Ichigo opens the spirit door himself and follows the butterfly through onto a street corner. A clock screen above a storefront flashes the time at him: 19:51. He steps past the clusters of people hurrying to and fro. The sky above Karakura is a steely grey. He landed a few blocks off from the clinic.

In a surge of haste, he breaks into a run. In soul form, he always feels detached from the physical world. Now he keeps his eyes open, soaking up the sensations: the hum of a train passing, the thrum of car engines and the screech of brakes, the beat of shoes as he weaves through a crowd.

He slips through a window into the twilit kitchen, where the dishes have been stacked, and a note in Yuzu's handwriting on the fridge door tells his father that the dinner leftovers are inside.

In the hall, his father hangs up his lab coat and steps into the kitchen. As always, he faces the poster first. Ichigo watches with choked fascination, silent beside the window, knowing Isshin would only need to turn around to see him there. His reiatsu, although held close out of habit, has already soaked the air about him—his father must know.

"I had a good feeling this morning, Masaki," Isshin says. "I thought it felt like our brave, foolish son."

He sort of wanted to come home from upstairs and feel the stairs creak under his feet. It doesn't matter now.

"Dad."

Isshin turns on his heel as if the world pivoted with him.

"Hey." Ichigo feels overwhelmed, his chest tight and warm, the corners of his eyes prickling. "I'm home." Now kick the crap out of me for being late. I missed that, damn it.

There's always a distance in Isshin's eyes when he speaks to Masaki; Ichigo considers it time that belongs only to his parents, and rarely intrudes. The sheen of memory flickers and fades until his father is looking straight at Ichigo, seeing him for the first time in months.

Isshin steps around the table and wraps him in a rough embrace. Ichigo leans into his father's hold like a much younger child, understanding that he heard even the part he left unsaid.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-Two: Ripple
>> Part Twenty-Four: Ordinary

There are no words to properly encompass raynos; she's just that good.

The TAR Challenge, week 1: the round-up

2009-06-20T15:40:53Z

Words for the week: 2773 words
Stories worked on: The Roots of Heaven only, woe.
Title changes on stories: One. RenHime 'fic is now Washed on your shore, which will hopefully stick.
Inane laughter fits while writing Isshin endured: < 5
Hours spent writing on trains: Approx. 4. Best time for writing that I know. If I had the money, I'd just spend all week shuttling south-north-south on the railway.
Hours spent speccing on Orihime's powers with the Ladies: > 3. Except to see more of this next week.

The ficbits that are shareable are in a filtered post here. See you next week!

So there I stood, notebook in hand jutting down a thought, when she dashed round the corner...

2009-06-18T23:09:32Z

And here I am, taking a page from Ten and bringing a whole new use for this writing journal. So far it's been mostly an archive for my finished stories, but one night not too long ago, I got together with the Ladies of Chat (in this case, tenebris and raynos) and we crafted a project to help each of us get our respective behinds in gear with producing literary output.

This venture will be known as The TAR Challenge (for Ten, Aino and Ray) and will tentatively run for about the next six weeks (until the end of July). My personal contribution will be to write 300 words of prose a day, except on Sunday, which is the Day of Game.

The challenge was conceived to help us all work on various stories, so there are no prompts or suchlike, only the word count. The idea is to post a report of weekly progress every Saturday, with word counts, stories worked on, and any silly asides one wishes to include. You'll be seeing these popping up in the following weeks.

This brings me to the point of this post. I'll be making a filter for these bits and pieces of fic so I can post them here, too. If you want to be on this filter, holler here! It will contain my raw and uncut drafts, so I won't subject anyone to it without their express consent. ;) For bein' on the filter, you'll get ~1800 words of prose a week and peeks into my head.

If you want to gauge whether or not this will be relevant to your interests, these are the stories I'll be working on:

The Roots of Heaven: 'Nuff said. If I end up writing any really spoilerific bits, they'll only be filtered to the beta crew, I'm sad to say.

Ghost of the Sun: Two first parts posted ages ago on this blog. Dystopic drama after Aizen wins; started because I wanted Rukia and Orihime to be their different brands of awesome together. Ishida snuck in there at some point. Bit of a fairytale/The Sandman: Worlds' End feel.

Hold me like a blade: Renji/Kira/Momo for echoinautumn. Done except for some of the plotty bits and the end half of the smut. A likely candidate.

The other shore (working title): Plottier continuation to This wild abandoned star. RenHime, beach in the rain, Japanese mermaids, Orihime powers spec by 'fic, June romance. This is my favourite headspace piece, but it's still totally unwritten.

The Lady in the Well: Older IchiRuki ghost story with an abandoned mansion and lots of the Kurosaki family. I still love the idea.

Night Watch: Still very nebulous post-war story I'm working on with echoinautumn, so really, you saw nothing. ;) Renji-Momo-Izuru -centric longfic hopefully marrying drama, angst and romance in a suitable mixture.

And beyond? We'll see.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-Two

2009-06-15T08:25:43Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part
In This Part: The burden of waiting is lighter when shared. (3000 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

Let's pretend, for just a moment, that I can maintain a posting schedule.

* * *

Twenty-Two: Ripple

Renji has to ask Captain Kuchiki to repeat himself.

"The Captain-General has called a meeting," his captain says again, with a hint of dissatisfaction. "One item on the list is your potential promotion to acting captain of the Fifth Division."

Renji nods. He might physically reel if the source of the news were any other. No disciplinary action for his prolonged absence, no probation. He still isn't sure how Captain Kuchiki explained his "field deployment" in the first place. A stripping of rank would have been unlikely, given the dire demand for people with enough power to qualify as senior officers. Taking up his regular duties was imperative. Be that as it may, he's served only two and a half years as a vice-captain. The promotion would be a high honour, even if it is a necessity.

"You will receive an official summons later."

"Thank you, sir." His captain is doing him a favour by telling him in advance. "If you're leavin', I better get back to work."

"That is all for now. Dismissed."

It's already late in the day. By the time Renji signs the last report and leaves the papers that need the captain's attention on his writing table, the sun has set.

He retreats to his quarters, washes and eats summarily, and slumps down onto the futon, both numb and restless. He'd burn some excess energy on a training session, but it's too late for that if he wants to catch any sleep. Not to mention that his best sparring partner is laid out in a Fourth treatment bed.

"Acting captain, huh?" he says to the ceiling. Of the Fifth, no less. Hisagi has kept the Ninth running with a good hand; he trusts Kira to take care of the Third; but the First and the Fifth have been on hold, their ranks distributed into the extant divisions, since the war. After the battles were over, the First had no senior officers left, and Hinamori was in no shape to shoulder the responsibility for a whole division. Renji closes his eyes on the memories.

If they so much as suggest he inherit anything that belonged to Aizen, he'll have to wring some necks. The people are another matter; they were oblivious to their captain's treachery up until all went down at the Soukyoku.

Guess this means I got a good reason to go see Hinamori, too. It won't be an easy conversation, but he's put off the visit for long enough. As far as he knows, she is still under observation by the Fourth.

Sleep tickles his eyes; he is tugging the quilts over himself when someone inches his door open. He doesn't usually lock it. The officers' wing is practically all his, given that the captain lives on his private estate. Sensing no hostile reiatsu, he sits up.

"Who's there? Somethin' wrong?"

"Not as such. It's me. Can I come in?" Rukia slides off her haori as she steps into his sleeping space. It's partitioned from the larger room with a panel screen.

"Hey. Sure, go ahead. Though I was kinda turnin' in. You want anythin', tea?" He waves a hand towards his small kitchen.

She sits down on the edge of his futon. "Company, that is all. I was looking for you."

"We've kinda missed each other recently, huh?" He offers her a half-smile. The weary shadows on her face seem to lighten. "Heard you got home from the infirmary."

"I did. And you were on patrol for two days. I wanted to see Ichigo, but he isn't allowed visitors until Captain Unohana and Orihime reach a solution. He is as before." Worry weighs her expression again. He only nods. They spoke of this every time he visited her, and once he was reprimanded afterwards for agitating her. He can do nothing but share her anxiety.

"I know. Guess we wait an' we hope." He rests back on one elbow as he slides into another subject. "How 'bout you? Did you just drop in for a midnight chat?"

"You could say that." She folds and unfolds her hands. "It's all so smothering back there. You'll probably think me spoiled, but... it doesn't feel like a home. I couldn't sleep, and thought of your saying I could come see you."

"Any time," he says, an easy promise. "Only sometimes work gets the prior claim."

"I'm well aware of that." A smile kindles in her eyes. "I have returned to work, as well."

He quirks an eyebrow, and she elaborates. Mentally, he nods in approval to the Captain-General, and makes a note to watch that she takes it easy. Something to do probably helps her to anchor herself, though. When he says as much, she nods agreement.

"Sometimes, Yellow Springs, our journey... they seem the only real things I've known. Even though I remember much more now." Rukia sighs. "Everything here is new."

"There's gonna be time for all that. We got back."

This is not how things are supposed to be. She should tell and he follow, as before. After her execution was stopped, even her deep-seated insecurities began to wane, and he came to know her again as more self-possessed, her childish pluck tempered into calm courage. The last time they sat like this, it was her reassuring him, which feels more like the right state of affairs.

* * *

Morning will come all too soon, and yet he can't sleep. Renji sits on the floor of his quarters, the pieces of his sword spread out before him, oiling and polishing each part with greater care than is really needed. His nerves are strung despite the meditative task or the quiet hour of the night.

He feels Rukia's approach long before she shakes the snow from her clothes and slips into the room. Taking care not to disturb his work, she seats herself.

"I'm glad you're still awake. I wanted to see you before..."

He strokes the oil-cloth down the blade, but glances up at her. "Things are gonna be crazy from here on out, yeah. You're goin' with Ichigo?"

"It made the most sense. They must have someone familiar with Soul Society's tactics."

Karakura is in chaos. After a long war of attrition in which neither side could gain a decisive edge, the armies from Hueco Mundo breached into the living world. The counterstrike will begin at dawn.

"Sure wish I could come along."

"We went over this, Renji. It's not that I wouldn't want you with us, of course, but..."

"Rukia, it's okay. Wouldn't feel right leavin' the division, anyway. This isn't like rescuin' Orihime." He watches her now, even as his hands piece together the familiar puzzle of the sword's hilt. Zabimaru is ready; he wishes he could be as certain, thinking of tomorrow.

"Save that we're separating again. It did not work very well in Las Noches."

"We aren't gonna be alone, none of us."

"I think... that is what makes it easier for me," Rukia says. "And more painful, as well. Everyone dear to me is going tomorrow."

The Gotei Thirteen hasn't been fully mobilised for longer than either of them have lived, but now, every able body has some task to accomplish. Rukia will join Ichigo and his friends; Orihime, Sado, Ishida, who refused to stand with anyone but the offbeat group from Karakura...

A part of Renji longs to go with them, too. He's fought beside many of them, and they've become trusted comrades. Ichigo is a friend, in a frank and uncomplicated way he'd hate to lose. The bond he's reforged with Rukia feels fragile in the face of the coming trials.

"C'mere." He nudges her on the knee. With an ease he can't remember since their childhood, she slides into his arms and her arms around his neck. She nuzzles her face into his hair like she used to do, and he holds her close. The moment is enough.

She lets go to look at him, affection and concern mixing in her countenance.

"Listen, there's..." A thousand things he would say. She is back in his life and sometimes the simple fact dizzies him. They've rebuilt their friendship in stolen hours amid the war. He wonders if it is enough.

She touches her fingers to her own mouth, then to his, in a caress and a restraint. "There'll be time for everything, Renji. We will come back."

"Right." He quirks a smile against her lingering hand. "We'll come back. That'll do."

But she vanished, presumed dead, and in the months of searching to no avail, he thought back to that conversation too many times to count.

* * *

His gaze has slipped to the shadows in the corner. Rukia cants her head at him. "Renji?"

"Nah, just had a thought. We did get back, but you took the long way around."

The truth feels a thin comfort. "I think I'm still on my way."

"Two weeks isn't that long," Renji says. "There you go again, tryin' to do everythin' in one go. You don't always have to aim so high, Rukia."

"I'm not, I'm—" She lets her shoulders slump. "Fine, you are right."

"Mm-hm. Wish I was more awake, should write that down so I could quote it later." His eyes glint, laughter seeking to pour forth.

"You—you insufferable lout!" She snatches up a pillow to slap him. He shirks back with a chuckle.

"Hey, no hittin' after midnight!" Grabbing the pillow from her, he holds it above his head.

"What kind of strange rule is that?" She tries to sneer. "Very well. Your amnesty ends at daybreak."

"Works for me. Got an early mornin'." He lies back onto the futon. "Tell you what. I oughta get off earlier tomorrow. We go spar and let you blow off some steam. Then, there's a few places I wanted to show you, before the war got in the way."

The more she thinks about that, the more inviting it seems. She misses something that would feel like her life, like home, instead of a borrowed, gilded role she doesn't know how to play. "I'd like that."

Lifting the quilt, she crawls in and claims one of his pillows. He gives a surprised noise, but makes room. "You plannin' to stay?"

"I do realise the implications. I'll be gone in the morning. Discreetly."

"That's not really..." He trails off. "Well, yeah, it did cross my mind. You're my captain's sister." And he kissed her, she remembers, twice. She could explain the first away by relief and the second by peril, if she wished to. The nearness feels different now, drowsy and agreeable.

"And you are the one person I truly know here," she shoots back. You're comfortable. You make me feel like I'm myself.

"There's plenty of room. Not that you take up a lot."

"Thank you." She lays her head on his outflung arm.

"Let go of you once," he mumbles. "Swore I wouldn't again. Don't mean to, either."

Rukia wonders if he feels how her heart flutters, in a swift thrum against her ribs.

* * *

She corners him twice. He flings her wooden sword out of her grip three times. The final bout turns into an unarmed scuffle that ends with his wrist in the lock of her hands and his foot ready to sweep her legs out. They decide on a draw, and he trips her facedown onto the tatami.

She pouts at him for that until he appeases her with rabbit-shaped onigiri filled with sweet bean paste, from a corner restaurant in the Ninth Southern District. Drifting along the currents of people, they listen to a storyteller braving the winter weather by a tavern front, duck into a noodle stall for dinner, and purify a lost-looking Hollow that materialises on the backyard of an old woman with two enormous, snarling dogs.

"Well, that was exciting," Rukia says as they stroll away.

"Those beasties were worse'n the Hollow." Renji examines the torn sleeve of his haori. "Wonder how that thing got so close to Seireitei. I'm gonna hafta look up who's patrollin' here today."

"You're quite the dutiful vice-captain." She cocks an eyebrow to punctuate the jibe.

"If there are Hollows runnin' loose in the Ninth, it's gotta be a lot worse in the lower districts."

"You still worry, don't you?"

"Always." He pauses. "You just get to be that way. Knowin' what it's like out there. Strays gotta stick together, an' now... I'm somewhere I can make a difference. A bit of one, anyway."

"Do not denigrate yourself." She lays her hand over the back of his. "Idiot." Making a fist, she snaps a punch at his arm.

"Ouch." He elbows her in return. "So, where d'you wanna go next? Whole Rukongai, spread out at our feet."

"I..." The afternoon has been so clement, his presence a comfort and a stimulation. He rouses her out of the miasma of decorum that engulfs her at the estate; she still cannot apply any aspect of home to the place.

I want to stay where you are.

She surfaces from that thought, jarring in its force, to find him with his head craned towards the sky.

"Thought I saw a—there!"

Following his pointing finger, she spots a black swallowtail spiralling down towards them.

"Hold out your hand," he says. "It wants to land."

She offers an open palm to the butterfly. Its feet tickle her skin as it touches her cheek with one delicate antenna. The message pours into her mind like a gentle spout of water, each syllable lucid and articulated.

Kuchiki Rukia, Captain Unohana's voice says. We are about to proceed with Kurosaki Ichigo's treatment now. Then the butterfly flaps up from her outstretched hand. She draws a breath to master herself—this method of communication is familiar to her in theory, but the surprise of the actual experience is fresh.

"Feels funny? You'll get used to it."

She seizes his hand, his fingers enfolding hers in immediate response. "We have to get to the Fourth. It's Ichigo."

Renji nods. "C'mon then."

* * *

Orihime rises from her seat as they enter the anteroom together. "Rukia-san. Renji-kun."

Renji raises his hand in a greeting. "Hey. You seen him?"

"A few hours ago." She doesn't seem to mind his brusque cut to the chase. "He seems to be fine. Unohana-san needed to be certain he is stable, before... before I try to lift him out. It's a bit tricky, because I don't know what happened to him very precisely at all. It's like I have the pieces for some complex sewing pattern, but I need to figure it out all by myself. Then again, it's not like that at all. I'm..."

"Orihime," Rukia says. "You can mend him. It'll be all right."

There it is again, the quicksilver change in Rukia's countenance, now steadied by compassion and resolve. He fixes his eyes on Orihime to hide the flush of gladness at seeing Rukia like that, at her best again. The return to Soul Society has been less kind to her than he hoped.

"I'll do my best," Orihime says.

"It will be enough." Rukia reaches to grasp her hand with her free one. "Do you think we could see Ichigo?"

A screen panel slides aside to allow Captain Unohana into the room. Renji straightens into a salute. "Ma'am."

"Abarai-kun." Unohana nods at him in acknowledgment. "Are you ready, Inoue-san?"

"Yes." She steps forward.

Unohana looks at the two of them, Rukia a little behind Renji. "And Kuchiki-san. I'll let you know when we are finished. You may wait here."

He catches a sideways glimpse of Rukia's face. Anxiety flares in her eyes before she stiffens, covering the emotion.

She wanted to see him, he understands. She should be there.

"Captain," he says before he can think twice. "You've isolated him, right? So it's only gonna be Orihime here, and you, keepin' an eye on everythin'."

"Yes."

"Could it hurt him if Rukia was with you? Watchin', outside the barrier?"

"That would be a highly irregular situation, Abarai-kun."

"Renji..." Rukia's eyes are wide with disbelief, but her hand squeezes around his.

Orihime turns back towards them; she stands erect, hands at her sides, as if summoning focus. "Unohana-san, I think..."

"Kuchiki-san has a powerful spirit pressure. It could contaminate the purification barrier," Unohana says. "As does Kurosaki-san. I must sustain the barrier around him while Inoue-san works, so that his power stays contained while he can't control it himself."

"If—if it would pose any threat at all—" Rukia seems unable to quite find her voice. "Of course I wouldn't..."

"It's just her reiatsu that'd be a risk?" Renji faces Unohana. "With all respect, she's top notch at holdin' it down. It... it'd be good for Ichigo to have a familiar face there. More'n one, I mean." He gives Orihime a sideways look, flashing a smile to alleviate his words.

"Very well." Unohana nods. "Kuchiki-san, you may follow me. Please dampen your power before you leave this room." Leaving the sliding door open, she exits the anteroom; Orihime gives Renji a small smile, then follows her.

"What are you doing?" Rukia whispers fiercely. Her hands ball into fists.

"You don't wanna go?"

"Well—yes, I do, but that isn't the point! You—"

"But nothin', Rukia. Look after him. For both of us, okay?" His voice catches. She should be there.

An' I should be there.

He turns halfway towards the door that leads outside. "See ya later."

"Wait—" Rukia meets his gaze, gripping and keeping the eye contact. "All right, then. Thank you, Renji."

You keep him safe, Rukia, 'til I get back. Like always.

Or, at least, like lately.

With a wave of his hand, he saunters out through the door, feeling her mute out of his senses layer by filmy layer of spirit pressure.

* * *

<< Part Twenty-One: Misgiving
>> Part Twenty-Three: Remnant

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty-One

2009-06-13T20:23:26Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Teen (PG-13) for this part.
In This Part: The homecoming is anything but. (4100 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

This one is for kawree, and she knows why.

* * *

Twenty-One: Misgiving

The front of her coat is damp with her own blood. Crouched down, she waits for her brother's permission to rise. "Stand, Rukia."

She uncurls her aching body from the deep kneeling bow. He looks much as he does in her dream-memories, but something doesn't match the image she has built for herself.

"Are you injured?"

She shakes her head faintly. "It is nothing. I was able to heal myself."

"You should still go to the Fourth immediately."

"The medical relief division." She says this more to remind herself of what the number signifies. "I-I'm sorry. I don't quite remember everything. It was the... stress of having been transported so far. Renji and Ichigo... They told me as much as they could, but..."

His eyebrows arch as surprise flutters over his face, but he contains it well. "I see."

She worries the flesh of her cheek with her teeth. She's endured so much more, she'll bear this as well. Renji needs her to be strong, and she can't count on his or Ichigo's constant presence from here onwards. They have returned: they all have separate lives and responsibilities, whatever hers will turn out to be, now that she's come back from the dead.

Her brother's face is closed as the serene visage of a god statue. "If you can walk, come with me."

They start the walk down the slope. In the distance, smooth, high walls are limned in the fading sunlight.

"Are you able to flash-step?"

"I believe... yes, I am." She looks up instinctively. The copper light catches the pristine kenseikan in his hair. The angle of his head is precisely the same as when—

They met in his study after her first day at the Thirteenth, and she bowed at the door and listened to the flawless inflection of his voice.

"What seat?"

"My abilities... were not sufficient for a seated position."

"I see." The words bent her back down. To her shame and dismay, the tatami blurred in her eyes for the barest moment—

She blinks back the memory and shimmers into shunpo at his quiet command. She mutely follows his lead as he sets a pace she can maintain. Some awareness in her head thrums a staccato beat of wrong, wrong, wrong: the jag-edged flashes of memory do not match some near subliminal nuance she perceives in her brother now.

The city enfolds them into its maze of streets and towers. He walks with grace and purpose a constant step ahead of her. She breathes easier for his detachment: it means that some of her fragmentary mental images of this place speak the truth.

A haven, a reprieve from the soldiers hunting them down; the city of Seireitei was supposed to be these things. It became a promised sanctuary during their flight, even with her doubts as to whether she'd find the welcome Ichigo and Renji painted for her in the cold evenings huddled around campfires in the wilds.

Her fears are both assuaged and coming true more painfully than she could have imagined.

She knows she loves her brother. He's never done her harm, but raised her from hardship and gave her material comfort, security, opportunity for which she can never repay him. Her disappearance must have...

Her thought falters. Whatever her supposed death stirred in her adoptive brother, she cannot say. The closeness of walls swims into her perception; movement clatters to and fro, people dart past them in both directions, her brother is addressing someone. The shinigami sketches a quick bow and turns on his heel.

"Are we there?" She can't keep all this straight, the bustle around her growing too much to comprehend. "This is the Fourth." Ichigo was brought here. "Where—where is Ichigo?"

It feels like a mercy when another officer sweeps towards them in a billow of black sleeves and cuts into her brother's incipient reply. "Captain Unohana will see you now, sir. This way."

Everything is flooded in practical yellow light, but the last of the day tints the examination room a warm, dazzling orange. The woman in the room smiles at her like a homecoming. She's about to step forward when her brother speaks, softly.

"Rukia. Kurosaki is in good hands."

She turns in the doorway, looking up the white fall of his haori. "I know, niisama."

* * *

Seireitei has sunk into darkness by the time the flurry of activity around Renji ceases. He's answered a hundred questions, most of them twice, been shuffled around the Fourth to find someone to take his statement on Ichigo's condition and then on Rukia's loss of memory, and at last led to a secluded, twilit room where Rukia already sleeps in one of the beds.

"Leave it," he mutters to the nurse as she makes to move a wood-and-paper screen between their beds. "I'd... like to see her."

He flops onto his side in the clean sheets and watches Rukia's slumbering face for as long as his eyes will stay open.

Safe. Whole. Home.

For the time being, he'll take refuge in all three.

The softness of the bed gradually melts into the warmth of sand under his back, the lamplight becoming the glow of a westering sun. With a shake of his head, Renji hoists himself onto his feet and takes the first look at his inner world in a long time.

The sight of the training hall arrests him, his breath lodging in his throat.

Black, grisly roots have burrowed between the planks of the veranda and wrenched them out of place. The entire dojo is smothered by vines rambling across the roof and over the sand. The vegetation shimmers with an oily sheen.

"What the fuck?" he breathes. "Zabimaru! You here?"

"Over here," comes the monkey's call from the other side. Renji lunges into a sprint, narrowly avoiding the serrated leaves snaking over the ground.

The nue is half tangled in the thicket of vines, tearing at them with tooth and claw. Blood stains his tawny fur here and there, but the cuts seem to spur rather than hinder him.

"What in the blue hell is goin' on here?"

"Your despatched nemesis left a souvenir." A thick stalk crunches under the pressure of Zabimaru's paws, and he flings a clump of the vines away. "It's burrowed all through the sand. Sneaky, slimy creature!"

"Wha—" The nue's frenetic purpose leaves him agape; even the snake tail is tugging on a fringe of leaves hanging over the railing.

"It's his sword-spirit." As Renji walks closer, numb with repugnant discovery, the dark gouges on Zabimaru prove to be deeper; his belly fur is matted and dripping red under his collar and down the wide chest. The serpent's scales are twisted out of alignment, bent and scraped all along the sinous body.

"We fought," the monkey says. "Even as you faced its master, it tried to poison me against you. All this... The air was black with spores. It tried to rot this place."

"He—the bastard could cripple a zanpakutou. Not like that freak of an Espada, Szayel, either." Horror and sympathy mingle in his mind as he voices what Zabimaru already knows, more to crystallise it for himself. "From the inside."

The rip of a root is the only reply Zabimaru makes. Renji stumbles back to take in the tableau more fully: the twisted vegetation has overrun the top of the mountain, tendrils rising from the sand as far as the pool of the waterfall.

He hauls the heap of loosened vines up from where Zabimaru has been piling them, marches all the way to the sheer drop down the mountainside, and lets his burden tumble into the mists. Then he steps into the skein of roots after his sword-spirit, grabbing the root the nue is pulling up. The leaves cut into his soles and hands. He lets the sand and dirt burn in the scratches, until it has long been dark on the mountain and Zabimaru pauses next to him and leans his weight into his side.

"That's enough for now, Renji."

The stream stings his wounds, too. He crouches down in the water and submerges his hands until the creek flows clear again. His eye prickles with a distant, phantom pain; he raises a wet hand to rub at it.

And a lot left to do.

* * *

Captain Kuchiki waits for Renji in the stone garden outside his private office. The summons came later than he expected. He's been back on duty for today, spent catching up with the day-to-day operations of the division. He bows, the captain nods, and an unusual silence falls. A recent recruit is lighting the lanterns along the veranda of the main building. Renji watches them flicker to life.

"I have received your full report," the captain says at last.

"Yes, sir. Somethin' unclear about it?" It took him too long to bare the entire journey into a succinct, factual account. He was given two weeks' leave to recuperate, but came back early just to have a routine filling his time again. There's so much he needs to work through, much too rough and complicated to be pinned onto paper and handed over for his captain's—or anyone's—scrutiny.

"I am satisfied. The head librarian requested that you schedule an interview with a scribe. You can contribute much to the archives on Yellow Springs."

"I will, Captain, soon as I got a moment." Captain Kuchiki is not a messenger. Renji waits.

"It is not urgent." A pause. "I was given to understand Rukia wished to send her regards. She'll be released from the Fourth Division today."

"That's good to know." He doesn't care to pretend otherwise. He was allowed to go home after a night's sleep at the Fourth, but Rukia's been held under the care of Captain Unohana for twelve days now. He's gone to the infirmary every day, and sat by her bed or on the veranda with her a few times, talking under the watchful eye of a nurse.

He hasn't seen Ichigo yet. From what he can tell, pretty much no one has.

"She has shown steady progress. However, I would like to speak to you in private. Concerning the things that were not on your report."

"I'm here, sir." Is this an attempt at some roundabout inquiry about Rukia? Or about his imprisonment at Phoenix Gate? He revolts at the mere thought. He did nothing to compromise Soul Society; never gave up his rank or allegiances. Whatever fallout it left, he will deal with it himself.

"How was she?" his captain asks. Renji suppresses a groan. I don't know. Maybe you could go see her. Then you'd know, as opposed to "being given to understand".

"Sir, with respect, I think you'd better ask her," he says aloud. "I'm no healer, I can't assess that kinda damage. I've—I've told you all I could see."

Captain Kuchiki's face is a study in impartiality, but he doesn't speak for a moment. Inwardly, Renji isn't sure whether he wants to kick his captain or himself. Talk to her, not me, damn it. I don't feel like goin' all Kurosaki on your ass now.

He is saved from that decision when a young woman bows her way into the garden. "Captain Kuchiki? I-I am sorry to bother you, sir. Seventh seat Aoki's been—taken to the Fourth, and—and my squad was supposed to go out, sir, but now—now they—"

"Captain?" Renji raises an eyebrow before the quivering shinigami mixes herself up beyond recovery.

"I will leave the matter to you, Renji. You are dismissed." The captain turns towards his office. Renji looks down at the willowy rookie, who still hasn't risen from her bow.

"Fuyutsuki, was it?" He's never seen the girl before, except in the new personnel files he checked today. She has distinctive, chestnut hair, barely tamed into braids piled on top of her head. "I'm the vice-captain. Good of you to let us know. Get up now, an' let's go see how your squad's doin'."

* * *

"Well, Kuchiki-san. You are the very picture of health." Captain Unohana goes to open the examination room door. The efficient bustle of the medical ward carries from the wider corridors.

"Thank you very much." Rukia finishes tying the sash of her kimono. The fresh clothes were sent for her from the Kuchiki estate in engraved wooden boxes. Being clean, sleeping indoors, and regular—and variable!— meals still feel like something out of a fantasy, so the silk garb is nothing short of extravagant.

"That also means I can't detain you here any longer." Captain Unohana smiles that minute, kindly smile that she still cannot read at all. "Not for any physical affliction, at least."

"Renji—I mean, Vice-Captain Abarai—was asking me when I'd be let go." Rukia smooths the heavy fabric, painted with twining pine boughs, over her legs.

"He has come here every day."

"The whole time?" She looks up.

"Captain Kuchiki requested that you rest until we could find out more about your condition," Unohana says. "So we thought it better to tell Abarai-kun to visit later."

"I see." Then another thought hits her. "If I may—what about Ichigo, ma'am?"

"I'll see to him shortly after this. His condition is stable. I'm expecting someone who may help me with him, but she's not here yet."

"Please, when you know more, might I have word? If it's not an inconvenience."

"Kurosaki-san's affliction is both complex and unique, Kuchiki-san. The damage done is entirely to his inner soul. His spirit-body is fine."

That Hollow is still inside him. Her chest tightens at the thought. A strange shame seems her foremost, selfish emotion; that she couldn't recall something so crucial about Ichigo. "Will you be able to help him, Captain Unohana?"

"We will be able to repair the damage, yes. I'll let you know when he is well enough to have visitors." The words are gentle, but belie an unmistakeable dismissal. "I will see you for a check in a week. Until then, please rest and reacquaint yourself with your family and friends. The most important part is to get you readjusted. I've also informed Captain Kuchiki of this."

"Yes, ma'am." What else is there to be said? "Thank you. You've been very kind." She bundles herself up into the haori and headscarf and takes her leave.

She believes she knows the way to the Kuchiki estate—but the word alone intimidates her. The place is supposed to be her home, and the home of her brother, whom she's hardly met since they emerged from the dimension gate.

She's nearing the gate of the Fourth Division grounds when a frantic patter of feet from around a corner makes her shrink back.

"Ooh, I'm late I'm late!" Tendrils of ginger hair whip behind the runner as she dashes past Rukia—and then skids into a halt that almost throws her off balance.

"Kuchiki-san!" Rukia finds her hands clasped and big grey eyes shining with astonishment at her. "I've been trying to get to visit you! Unohana-san said you needed rest, so I thought of sneaking in, quiet-like, maybe with woolly socks on."

Rukia waits for the awkward pause. The girl skates right over it. "My name is Inoue Orihime. I'm pleased to meet you again. I don't very often get the chance to meet my friends for a second first time. It must be unusual for you, but I will try to be easy and friendly and give you time," she finishes like a litany of instructions.

This is Inoue, then, one of Ichigo's friends from the living world. Her hair is pulled up with a clasp, and bright pins gleam on her temples. She is dressed in a long green skirt and red coat; her mittens have fuzzy tassels hanging from the wrists. The smile on her face is a spark of gladness and warmth.

"My pleasure. I've... heard much about you, Inoue-san."

"Orihime," she says unexpectedly. "Please. 'Inoue-san' sounds quite like we're strangers, and I'd very much like to be your friend again."

"Then you can't call me 'Kuchiki-san'. It isn't fair." It's hard not to smile back at her.

"But..." Orihime rocks up onto the toes of her boots. "All right. Rukia-san it is. Whatever makes you comfortable. Comfort is very important when people have lost their heads, so they don't bump them any worse. I wonder if you could wear a pillow on your head. It'd be softer than a helmet."

"Orihime," Rukia cuts in. Orihime's viewpoint seems to weave seamlessly, but arrive at the destination in the end. "You were on your way somewhere?"

"Oh, oh!" She stands up very straight. "That's right. Kurosaki-kun. Unohana-san wanted me to come in to see if I could do anything."

"For Ichigo?" Orihime is a healer, this she knows.

"I'm sorry, Ku—Rukia-san. I have to run now. I don't... want to keep him waiting." She releases Rukia's hand. "We should talk later. I'm so glad you're better."

"Please help Ichigo. That's the most important thing. I'm sure we will have plenty of time."

"Yes!" Orihime is serious now, eyes a-glimmer with resolution. "That is what friends do. Help in tight spots—and soften the world when it hits too hard. Sometimes I really think it has nails in its bat."

"You can... find me at the Kuchiki estate, then. Good luck." I should do more. I should go along.

Orihime takes off at a run. Rukia hurries homeward and tries to shake the feeling that she is going the wrong way.

* * *

The Kuchiki estate stands enveloped in a network of gardens and pathways, the far wings of the house folding out of sight between the groomed trees and winter-brown lawns. Rukia walks up to the gate and addresses one of the guards.

The enlarged eyes of the young man remain her last clear perception as she is ushered inside and enveloped in a flurry of assidious servants, whispering in voices at once urgent and restrained.

"Lady Rukia is here! Why was no one told?"

"I apologise, my lady, if we had only known..."

"Is her room ready? Make haste!"

No, she bathed only this morning. Yes, she would like something to eat, if it is no trouble. No, the futon seems fine. Yes, she can manage, now would they please leave?

At last, she slides the door panel shut in the face of the last maid and breathes against her hands. "Heaven keep me," she murmurs.

To distract herself, she looks about the room. It is spacious and tastefully furnished in blue and green against the cream and black of the wall panels. The veranda outside can be accessed by a door in the corner. Shirayuki rests on a rack beside her bed. She strokes the lacquered scabbard—at least one thing familiar among all this finery. Several articles of clothing rest in boxes on the floor: her travel attire, washed and folded away.

Burning them would've seemed more in the Kuchiki style, she thinks as she fingers the tasselled sash. The map case Lian gave her is tucked under the sash, as is the knife she bought on her first visit to Cicada Creek.

Broken Bough is dead, probably slain by some convenient, nameless soldier, or Zhi the wanderer is gone, ostensibly to the west through the Phoenix Gate. There is only Rukia, the young lady of House Kuchiki in the shadow of her brother.

"Who are you?" she asks the room.

On the writing table, she finds a letter with her name in thin brush-strokes on top. She breaks the flower seal—her division emblem—and reads the words, twice, to make sure that the message is correct as she understood it.

One of the clothing boxes holds a fresh uniform. She shakes it out.

* * *

Shirayuki's weight on her hip is as much a comfort as the crisp, heavy uniform. She feels more like herself. There's still something more to what she is: Kuchiki Rukia, shinigami soldier of the Gotei Thirteen.

She spends too long at the office door, straightening the pleats of her hakama. In the end, a discreet cough sounds from the other side before she can muster the nerve to knock. "Come on in, Kuchiki."

The windows fill the office with sunshine that sets the wall panels aglow and lights up the blown motes of paper dust in the air. The Captain-General has wise, weary eyes, albeit the smile on his face conceals the stress well. She's served under this man for over forty years. Now he is the commander of the entire Gotei Thirteen.

She bows deep. "Please excuse me, Captain-General."

"I'm still your captain, Kuchiki. That would be fine."

"Captain Ukitake." That seems to fit better. "I'm sorry, sir. I had the, um..." What were you going to say? "Thank you for your well-wishes, sir? That was very thoughtful of you. Do you send get-well letters to all your subordinates, or am I a special case?"

"Well, I am glad to see you out and about again. Have a seat," he continues as if her stutter had never occurred. "Did Retsu give any hint when we could expect to have you back? You've been missed."

"Thank you, sir." The complete ease of him is bewildering, yet infectious. "I'm fine, save for the... memory loss, of course."

"Of course," he says. "We are a little short on capable people, but I'm not about to return you on duty until both Retsu and Byakuya agree."

The mention of her brother is a sombre pull on her mood. "I know."

"You're not happy with that?" He is watching her, friendly interest veiling profound insight.

"No, I didn't mean to..." She schools her features. "May I speak freely, sir?"

She continues at his nod, "I do feel as though I am terribly useless. I don't mean to complain, but surely there is something I could do even now. The Gotei—I've been given to understand—it isn't—" Rukia catches herself. If anyone, Captain Ukitake must know the current state of the Thirteen Divisions.

"Yes, Kuchiki. We lost too many people. I'm feeling my lack of a vice-captain more than ever."

Kaien-dono. She deadens the thought before it can take hold. "Yes, sir."

"But perhaps there's something we can do, regarding you." He smiles slightly. "How is your accounting these days?"

"Sufficient, I believe," she says. "I am out of practice, but..."

"This entire office is running over, Kuchiki. Kiyone's still recuperating, and Sentarou seems only half his usual self. I have some good people from the First, but they're on a loan until the division can be recommissioned. There's simply too much work."

She can already guess what he means. She lets the smile touch her lips.

"Far be it from me to put you out in the field, but you have a steady writing hand. You could be inestimably useful in that very chair there."

"I think Captain Unohana wouldn't mind, but..."

"I'll speak to Byakuya," Captain Ukitake gently cuts her off. "He will understand. It's not as if you would be exposed to anything but papercuts and the occasional unreasonable deadline. And I'll keep an eye on you, so you don't overwork yourself."

"I can handle it, sir!" Her cheeks heat. "I mean—I'd be happy to, Captain."

"Good, good." He has a glimmer in his eye. "Now, please return on your leave. I'll be glad to see you here again, but not before everyone is in agreement."

Rukia bids her captain good day and leaves the office with heart-deep reluctance. She should go home. She knows her brother will be returning earlier today. Instead, she turns her steps towards the Sixth Division. Renji will be there, or someone who knows where he can be found.

She wants someone she truly knows so badly it's a physical ache in her chest.

* * *

He drifts weightless, bodiless, senseless through the gloom.

The sideways city in his soul is fogged by night, its eternal day drowned out. If a moon is out somewhere in the sky, he has no idea.

Soon, king, his only companion mutters in his ear, grave-chill on the memory of skin. I know what I'm owed.

* * *

<< Part Twenty: Phantom
>> Part Twenty-Two: Ripple

Many, many thanks to raynos for pointing out the things that didn't work. All that may be left are my fault alone.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Twenty

2009-03-01T00:03:46Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Mature (R) for graphic violence and head games.
In This Part: The three face moments of truth. (7100 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Twenty: Phantom

Renji comes awake to awareness of a blunt ache in his ribs. Rukia has rolled over in her sleep, nestled against Ichigo, with her face half buried in his shoulder. He crawls out from under the blankets, doing his best not to disturb the two. Rain patters on the roof, but the shutters let in strokes of tawny light.

It's raining, at dawn, at the brink of the world. The sun, flat and copper-tinted, breaks through the clouds. He steps out of the gatehouse into a moment of glass-bright colours, misted by the rain.

He walks up between the columns that line the bridge, trying to limber his protesting muscles. Even this up close, he can't see where the bridge ends; it melds into the sky where shapes cease to matter in the places between worlds. Rusted hooks for lanterns cling to the wide, etched railing here and there. The structure hums with enchantment so faint he strains to sense it, sunk deep into the stone. Here, the rain thins to mere moisture skimming his cheeks.

"Hey," says a voice from behind. Knuckling his eyes, Ichigo stops beside him. "Something interesting out here?"

"Looked like you two could've used some more shut-eye. Didn't wanna bother you."

"I was awake." Ichigo leans on the railing, squinting as the sun hits his face. "She's pretty beat, though. Healing seems to take a lot outta you, and she's done more'n her fair share lately."

"Yeah. We just suck at stayin' in one piece."

That elicits a husky laugh from Ichigo. "Shut up. We made it, didn't we?"

He only nods, but feels a grin touch the weary curve of his mouth. He was about to venture higher to see where the brigde cuts into the border: now, it's as well to stand here and watch the morning for a little more.

"Listen," Ichigo says, as if bracing to spit out something stupid or difficult.

"Okay."

"And shut up while you're at it." Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest. "Uh, when we get home... things are gonna go back to normal, right? As normal as they can, I mean."

"Mm-hm."

"I don't wanna think about it, but... I got a fuckload of catching up to do if I'm gonna pass high school this year."

"Didn't you have the books with ya? Some of 'em?" On a general level, Renji sympathises. Ichigo's worried about his education before, sometimes at the strangest moments during the war when most of them stopped at hoping to see tomorrow morning. Still, Ichigo has a life to return to, and it isn't in Soul Society. Suppressing the thought, he looks away.

"Yeah. Who's got time for trigonometry and the Meiji Restoration when someone's in mortal danger every five minutes?"

"Don't look at me."

"Your ass was gonna be toast, Abarai."

Renji twitches without quite knowing why. "Consider it a personal favour I'm not gonna answer that, Kurosaki."

Ichigo sighs, long and light. "Duly noted. It was one hell of a trip, anyway."

"Let's not do this again." He rests his elbows on top of the railing, throwing the youth a look. "Could do with less of the deadly peril part next time, eh?"

"Well," Ichigo lets the word drag. "It wasn't all bad. There was the bit with the haiku in the village, what was it, Persimmon Flower? That was damn near inspired. That's not a compliment, you jerkface!" He stabs an accusing finger at him when a grin tugs Renji's lip. "You got us into that mess."

Renji guffaws. "We had to get the translator workin' somehow, right? But the boat, that was all your fault."

"As if," Ichigo grumbles almost fondly. "I don't even wanna know what you were doin' out back before they turned up to throw us into it."

"I got us outta the ravine!" Renji shoves him in the shoulder, a rough, familiar gesture.

"Fine, fine." Even as his countenance sobers, Ichigo seems to get distracted by something on the horizon. "I just wanted to say. We get home, I go back... Take care of her. She's still got some remembering to do."

"Dumbass. You think I'd do anythin' else..."

"I'm not finished. I, ah, you..." Renji blinks at the expression on Ichigo's face, only half visible past his hand tugging at his hair. The fierce focus in his drawn eyebrows is offset by the uncertain curve of his mouth. "You know, I might even..."

"What?" That one word may be a mistake. He can't seem to stand the silence as Ichigo gropes for words.

The moment shatters at an alarmed, muted shout from the gatehouse. Ichigo balks upright, his gaze flying first to Renji, then down the arch of the bridge. "Rukia?"

"Fuckin' hell, what—" Renji's longer legs carry him into a momentary lead, but Ichigo catches up in a few strides. They round the lowest column in lockstep, and Renji frees his sword with a savage pull.

They are ten or twelve steps from the hut. Two people, a man holding a sword, a woman with a pair of long knifes, both in travel-stained, loose clothes, stand in between. As they both jar into a halt, Renji realises Ichigo is unarmed.

The door hangs open. A sudden smash echoes from inside.

"I'll take 'em, go!" Ichigo pushes him, and Renji feels his reiatsu thicken in a rush of alacrity and awareness.

He obeys without second thought. The bridge is an anchor for the stuff of reality around them; there's next to no risk of striking an unstable patch. Shunpo throws him across the meagre distance.

The doorway leaps at him even as someone swings at him from the side. He spins and catches the swordsman's downward blow, wrenching their crossed blades to the right and lashing a kick to his knee. He has to keep his opponent moving: any opportunity to speak a spell may mean a too-quick end to this bout. Renji hears Rukia's voice stammering into a kidou chant. Hope flickers in him before her incantation is broken by a crash of wood.

He needs the man off his back. Damn Ichigo; he can put up a fight with his bare hands, but holding two skilled fighters without a weapon was too much. The man is swift and decisive: ducking Renji's kick, he flings his sword into a riposte.

There is the soft whisk of an arrow from above. Instinctively Renji snaps his head skyward, knocking the man fiercely into the doorframe as the shaft embeds itself into the ground. A funnel of humming black dots unfold into a cloud from the quivering feathers. He senses the swordsman lurching away from him.

For an instant, they look like tiny insects. They are motes of fine dust, permeating the air with a musky smell he probably shouldn't breathe in...

With a spasming noise, Ichigo crumples onto his side. He convulses once, then his head drops limp. The woman with the knives stands back as the motes swarm and disperse gently.

Renji clamps a hand on his mouth as nausea wells up, spreading tar through his limbs. His knees fold and he tries to clutch at his sword, but it tumbles from his nerveless fingers. The substance took a moment longer to affect him; Ichigo is smaller and leaner.

Swaying, he sees Rukia: another man emerges from the hut jerking her along. Her mouth is stuffed with what looks like a scarf, her arms bent back by his grip on her wrists. Her eyes widen as the man hauls her past him, shining with fear and rage.

So close, is all he can think. We were so close. What'd the bastards do, lie in wait here? His body is dull and faraway, out of joint with his all too alive mind. The paralysis seems thickest in his legs; his breath scrapes in and out, his mouth almost moulding words.

Who are they? They're good. Tian bin?

That seems the logical conclusion. The only one who could have led them here...

Soft boots stalk towards him. A gloved hand reaches to pluck the arrow from the ground, stroking the feathers to smooth away some minute imperfection.

"You stopped to play house in enemy territory, Abarai-san?" Wei lowers himself onto his haunches, his eyes on level with Renji's. "I take it you weren't the mastermind behind the break-in to the garrison."

Oh, gods.

The dark gold of the sun frames every detail. The world lies in light, yet his eyes squeeze shut to either hide or remember. His hands splay on the ground, cold dirt, withered grass, the chafed stone of the cell floor...

No. Don't break. Not now.

One by one, he took the images and shuttered them away. He tried to forget how Rukia's gentle touch seared memory into his skin, or how he'd sit staring into the fire with two parched eyes because if he blinked, one might be only a socket brimming with blood.

He never wanted to see Ichigo looking at his scarred wrists with such pity on his face.

"You did a rather poor of job covering your tracks." Wei sets a hand under his jaw. He shudders at the fingers on his throat, gripping the formless yell that rises and tamping it down.

Take your hands off me, you fucker.

"You should've killed your little helper." The pad of a finger brushes his pulse point. "That might've delayed us." The girl fell into Wei's hands. He feels numb to the realisation, as if it's either too painful or frivolous to consider.

Renji squares his jaw, feebly. It seems fitting that Wei the Tiger, who takes a great cat as his namesake, enjoys a lingering kill. His touch seems to part Renji's flesh and burrow into the places where he himself can't bear to look.

"I'm afraid I'll have to drag you back all that way." Wei turns his head up to meet his eye. He flinches, facial muscles jerking. He'd speak if the words would come right, but he won't humiliate himself by stammering.

Don't touch me, you can't hold me, leave my friends and go—

Panic, blind and awful, soaks in past every attempt to keep his head. Here he is again on his knees before this man, who so effortlessly made him afraid like he's never been. Fear is an old friend, as is the unforgiving weight of one's own mortality in battle; this is a darker, uglier kind that pries apart his resolve piece by piece.

"Bring the woman." Wei switches to the local language. Renji is mortifyingly grateful when he withdraws his hand. "The boy is unnecessary."

"No," he gasps, forcing his fingers to find purchase in the earth, dragging his gaze where Ichigo slumped down. "No."

Rukia moans, keening, scuffling against her captor, beyond the edge of his sight. The man Renji fought in the doorway steps forward. He sheathes his sword and bares a knife instead. Leaning over Ichigo, he tugs his head back by a fistful of hair.

* * *

Ichigo whips around, away from the woman's darting knives, and draws in a lungful of honey and rot and darkness. Something heavy and sticky encases his body; she dances back even as his eyes mist over. He itches from the inside as if something were teeming along blood vessels and nerve clusters and the marrow of his bones. Far away, someone is speaking, moving.

He doesn't feel himself hit the grass.

The spell or poison infuses him and leaves his mind stranded in the lax bounds of his body. They're in trouble, he heard a noise like an arrow flying, Rukia's inside the hut, Renji was supposed to get her... His limbs don't seem to grasp movement, strength, co-ordination. Mangled words are carried to him, in a pleasant voice that seems to speak accented Japanese.

Something is wrong. He needs to get up. He knows one way to borrow power, with Zangetsu out of his reach.

He plummets inward, passing the sky and streets of his inner world, letting them swoosh past, until all is wet grime, coiled in the furthest reach of his soul. Are you here? Answer me!

The Hollow takes a long, languorous breath, as if waking up. Your... partner's sword-spirit's in trouble, he whispers. Did you notice?

The hell? Shirayuki? Zabimaru? Ichigo pauses at a stab of uncomprehending panic at this incongruity, then forges on. Look, you can mess with me later. I need your help. Try to fuck with me and we'll both die here.

Do decide which you want me to do. It'd be my pleasure, O king.

You have time to joke around, you have time to get this—this thing off us! I need to know what's going on!

What's in it for me? The Hollow is still only a voice now, but he can hear him grinning, too wide across his face, like a gleefully sadistic wrench.

Your continued existence! I can't do this! Move, damn it!

That's it, partner, the Hollow almost purrs. See? Say what you mean and things are so much simpler. Fingers clench around his wrist, and he is pulled up as if through sand or deep water. Let's do this. You want to do this, don't you?

He can't think on everything this means now.

Yeah.

The bony hand chills his own as it draws it up and into a smooth pull from left to right. Near-liquid ice seems to rush through his head, and the darkness shrivels into glowing clarity.

* * *

Rukia fights down the urge to retch against the scarf wadded in her mouth. Her hands are pinned in her captor's much larger ones.

Hu Wei found them. She isn't certain how. She is certain that unless they manage to tip the balance of this encounter, all their lives are forfeit. She forces herself to concentrate on the scene before her, Ichigo gasping and immobile on the ground, Renji on his knees as Wei studies him as if he were some exotic, dangeous animal he has trapped.

Inured to necessity, used to hardship, she finds herself revolting at the casual malice in the man. He's highly resourceful, but appears to allow a personal dimension to influence how he deals with Renji. Partly he is toying, partly there must be a... more complex interest. She has to think in cold, tactical terms, to ignore the horrible pressure on her wrist. The other two—a broad, scarred man, a graceful, stern woman—have their eyes on their leader.

The knot on the gag is at the back of her head, but it was tied in a hurry. With tongue and teeth, Rukia pushes out a little more of the sour-tasting cloth.

Wei stands back from Renji, who seems to resist the paralysis better than Ichigo, fallen to his knees, but still upright. Then Wei speaks, an implied command. "The boy is unnecessary."

She hears herself scream against the fabric, wrenching in a futile attempt to free herself.

Ichigo, get up! Get up! Not like this, no—

* * *

Renji tries to push his power under the layer of paralysis, scratching and gouging without any plan. He must move, he can't move, and—

Ichigo bursts up with a rasping scream that should be beyond a human throat. The man with the knife totters backwards as the jaws of Ichigo's mask, warped enough to cover half his face, snap shut. Then he is on the man before Renji can blink. His foot slams into his stomach with merciless precision, dropping him face down. He pivots towards Renji and grabs his arm with enough force to deaden the blood flow.

"Wha—" Renji can only stare into the darkness of his eyes. Hands on his shoulders, Ichigo returns his gaze; he struggles past the clashing horror and intimacy of the gesture.

Then the sable-smooth power of the Hollow licks over his own: it's like someone sliding a knife between fruit and peel and yanking off the skin in a single movement. The paralysis falls away in one graceful slide. Renji staggers with the raw lightness of his body, with his muscles responding as they should. Ichigo stumbles, bracing himself on a knee.

The mask shatters; a pulse of power wracks the air. Renji reaches out with a gasp, but Ichigo's sleeve shuffs through his fingers as the youth collapses.

* * *

Ichigo surges up with the red-streaked oval of a Hollow mask gleaming on his face. His power cracks against Rukia, flaring as he drops his would-be killer with a kick she can barely see.Buffeted by the dark charge of his reiatsu, Wei and the woman stumble backwards.

That is him, Rukia comprehends. He's in control now.

That returns her purpose. The gag blocks the sound of her voice, but she might be able to form the syllables. Her captor's grip has slackened with momentary shock. With desperate force, tugging together as much of her power as possible, she summons the strongest binding she can do with her hands seized.

"Way of binding—nine—Geki!" The spell wraps around the man in a beat of scarlet energy. He reels back, but the kidou freezes his grip on her, and she topples after him. Frantically wresting away, she sees Renji whirl away from Ichigo, now prone on the ground.

That is all she needs to know. Renji is free, Ichigo's aura blank with unconsciousness. She'll worry about him later. Renji wheels towards Wei, Zabimaru back in his hand, so she tears the gag off and commences a chant. As if brought out of a daze, the woman flips her knives and advances on her. The binding Rukia fired at her captor was weak; this one must finish the task.

One blade swishes towards her, nearly throwing off her concentration as she ducks, the edge passing the crown of her head. The woman slams the back of her studded glove into Rukia's jaw. Glints of light swim in her vision. Thrusting both hands forward, she calls out the final syllables of the first spell. The shining bars converge at her assailant's chest in a tremor of energy, clinching her in the middle of a blow.

"Rikujoukourou!" Rukia snaps out again. The second binding in the double incantation pours into shafts of light from her outflung palms.

* * *

Ichigo moved, and Renji could only respond on trust and instinct. The mask breaking tells him there will be no further help from the youth, but his hand closes on Zabimaru's hilt and his eyes find Wei, gaping, an arrow nocked on the string of his bow. The traces of astonishment on his face suffuse Renji with satisfaction.

Got you, bastard. That should be somethin' even you don't see every day. If he can help it, it'll be the last thing Wei ever sees. He shunts away the sounds of Rukia's scuffle behind him. She'll manage. This is the only strike that will matter.

"Howl—"

The release blazes up and dies in his hand. An immovable grip closes around his power and strangles. Zabimaru roars in dismay and outrage, thrashing against the restraint. The sword feels a mere lump of steel, inert, common.

His shikai is smothered.

He's done this! He's tainted us! Zabimaru rails, the voices of the nue mingling into disturbing echoes.

Wei springs into motion, his bow discarded as he swerves round Renji with a fluid flash-step. His confusion vanishes in the way of grim intent. He dives after Wei, sword leading—released or not, it will cut—his mind racing to keep up with the cascade of things happening much too quickly.

Pivoting, Wei blocks his gliding strike with a harsh clang of steel, slinking back even as he angles their joined blades steeply to the side. There's no sword in his hand, only a long, smooth-edged knife. Renji allows his grip to loosen and flex to free his weapon–never leave a blade locked with your enemy's, then spins to stay on Wei's left best as he can. Never leaving shunpo, they whirl around each other: Wei is sharp and strong, never hesitating despite his clear disadvantage in reach.

"What did you do to my sword?"

"Oh, after my trade secrets now, are you?" Wei stabs towards Renji's shoulder, deftly shifting into a slash that splits the skin of his arm as he is an eyeblink too slow in parrying. It's more like a fast-beating, graceful practice spar; they may well be equal or nearly so in power, but Renji's exhaustion hampers him, and Wei keeps him at bay with too little effort.

"Whatever," he throws back. "Won't matter when I cut you in—" He feints to the right, then tips the angle of the sword and slams it down along Wei's blade, wrenching the knife from his grip. Now!

The knife tumbles to the ground, but Wei no longer stands there. Renji swears aloud as he hurtles after the man again. Shunpo over short distances can be disorienting, the flood of sensory input coming hard and fast. Movement flashes past him, and he pushes himself into quicker flash-step; then, in the second that he perceives Wei again, the man raises his voice into a shout. "Stop!"

Renji hears a high gasp, stunned or frightened, perhaps his own. The ground seems to crumble from underneath him.

"Don't move, little outlaw," Wei says evenly. "That goes for you as well, Abarai-san."

A red droplet oozes down Rukia's throat under a slim knife in Wei's hand.

She stands unmoving before the much taller man, her hands wound behind her back. Ichigo lies not far away, his breath sawing in and out. The man Ichigo kicked hasn't got up. Wei's two remaining helpers are frozen by binding kidou, yet the observation rings empty in his mind.

"You son of a bitch." Renji nearly chokes on the murderous fury that throbs through him. "What the hell is this?"

"My parentage is irrelevant here, Abarai-san. You didn't think I'd let you run after that escapade at the garrison?"

"Don't you dare pull her into this." His voice cracks. "Don't you dare, you fucker, she's done nothin'."

"Drop your weapon. You can't summon its power, but I'd rest easier if it was further away." Wei moves the hand grasping Rukia's; she jerks, tight and involuntary, and a sickening noise escapes through her clenched teeth.

Zabimaru rings on the ground as Renji lets go and kicks the blade away. No choice there.

"It's me you want," he mutters. "Let them go."

"And lose the bounty on your little outlaw? That was clever, using her to get in. Half the mercenaries on Tiangen would've sold their mothers to collect that prize."

"The other half don't know their mothers, or they'd follow suit," Renji snaps. Rukia radiates defiance in spite of her hurt and humiliation, her face angled to the side and towards Ichigo.

Keep him talkin'. He likes the sound of his own voice. Give Zabimaru... time. Yeah. He casts out a terse thought. Calm down. You gotta think. There's a way.

The nue doesn't answer. Renji has to trust that he's listening.

"I wonder if I could get something for your young protegé, too," Wei says. "Is he some sort of a hybrid? His power was like a tian bin until the... transformation."

"Curious?" Renji sneers. "A minute ago you were gonna kill him. Would've been a terrible waste, dont'cha think?"

"One doesn't store tainted meat." Wei's face hardens. Renji knows he is toeing a tightrope here, one that may come loose at any moment.

"Tainted? Watch what you say. He tore through your fancy-ass binding like paper."

"It seems he also exhausted himself doing so." Wei jabs with the knife: the bead of blood becomes a thin, glistening line. Rukia gasps, her eyes unblinking, and the need to meet her gaze is nearly insurmountable. Renji's hands clench as he keeps his entire focus on Wei.

"All right," he snarls, yet it sounds too much like a plea. "Let's cut the horseshit. What do you want?"

* * *

You saved him, and now he can't fight. Tell me again, partner, how the hell did you end up holding the reins?

Ichigo's heart should hammer loud enough to drown out the Hollow. No such luck.

If you don't get it, then you'll never understand. Shut your trap.

Oh, I do get it, the Hollow hums somewhere in the space that is neither physical reality nor his inner world. I know what you were saying, king, before you were so rudely interrupted.

Funny that, he rejoins. Since I don't even know.

Through the mire of utter exhaustion, a fleeting idea nudges him that this isn't what he should be doing. Arguing with the Hollow is a useless pastime; he only understands the law of the strongest. Why is he still here? He should be standing up, fighting, seeing that Rukia and Renji are...

The Hollow is partly right; he might not know the words to express what he wanted to say on the bridge, but he knows their meaning, deeper inside than words can even go.

Really, partner? Then I guess you can manage this one without my help? Think he can manage without the help of his chattering monkey?

That sends a quiver of alarm resonating through him. Something's happened to Zabimaru. What the hell are you saying?

I said he was in a tight spot, the Hollow drawls. The old man could've told you, but he's still worn out from last time. Took a lot out of him, pulling your ass out of the fire...

Okay. Then, you help me.

For an agonising moment, glacial silence is his only answer, cold whistling through the space between.

Then Ichigo drags his eyes open and strains to see in the dulled glare of the sun.

Through the slim blades of grass, so far on the rim of his sight she blurs into mere shape and colour, Rukia is staring straight at him. Sunlight is reflected off something a small ways ahead of him, almost within his reach.

Get me there, the Hollow whispers.

* * *

"What do I want?" Wei repeats. "To be blunt, I want you, Abarai Renji, or whatever your name is. You never did answer my questions. It would've been downright unseemly to let you run home with all that intelligence on us."

"Wha—you thought we were spyin' on you lot?"

"Don't insult me." Wei grits his teeth; Renji may not be the only one whose composure is crumbling. "You're a member of a foreign military, sent here in secret. Need I continue? I will kill. I will lie, and extort, and interrogate in the name of my oath. Should I assume you'd do anything less?"

Renji understands something, and the realisation drenches him in ice. This man is a fine soldier, loyal, steadfast, disciplined.

"I came to get her," he says with shattering honesty. "We don't care. I got orders to do one thing, and that's to bring her home."

This man imprisoned and tortured him, fabricated a dozen gruesome fates to whisper at him in the darkness to break his resistance. If he moves an inch now, gives any suggestion to Wei that he is a threat, the knife will slit Rukia's throat.

"How very altruistic of you." Wei gives a low, incredulous noise. "Unacceptable. She'll answer for her crimes, and so will you. The boy is too much trouble to keep alive."

Muscles bunch along his back and shoulders, his body so tight with vain intent that it nearly makes him light-headed. Rukia is slipping beyond his reach, balanced on the edge of the blade on her skin.

This man will hunt him beyond the ends of the earth because he is a threat, and because he didn't break under his hands. As if from a great distance, he knows he's stepped into a deadlock he has no hope of cracking unless at the cost of lives dearer to him than his own.

He took that step himself, on a wild hope, a desire that is now his undoing.

* * *

Every shift of air in her throat seems to press her windpipe fractionally closer to the knife. Wei has a grip on her hands that will alert him the second she moves them into a kidou mudra. Watching Ichigo consumes her; she can't even twitch before he grasps the sword half-hidden in the grass beside him. He moves in arduous, near-silent jerks, one at a time. Renji retorts to every one of Wei's taunts, only his face is pale and hollow, despair winning ground with each passing moment.

She has no strength left to lend either of them, but there is one more thing she can do.

Ichigo reaches Zabimaru's hilt and pulls himself up halfway. His knuckles whiten around the handle.

Rukia pounds her heel into Wei's knee viciously and precisely. He buckles with a curse—and steel whispers across her throat in a deep, clean slice. Her next exhalation gurgles, although she feels no pain, only the blood soaking her collar.

She knew she might take the cut. The blade was pressed too close. Clasping a hand on her neck, she tries to think, reason, remember, cohere her will into a healing spell in spite of the wetness welling through her fingers.

How quickly does a neck vein bleed? Renji yells her name over the rush of her breath like a broken drum. Her reiatsu floats in a light, hazy swirl as if she weighed nothing.

Focus, mumbles something through the soft, cloudy sheen that blossoms in her mind. It doesn't hurt. She should move away from the man who was restraining her. She can't seem to catch her breath...

* * *

All he can see is the crimson flowing down her throat. Wei hobbles back on a pure reflex of pain; Renji hardly notices, as he teeters forward, hand flung out as she crashes down, vainly seizing at her own neck. "Rukia, Rukia—"

"Renji! Here!" Ichigo barks from the side. He thinks he must be going mad, the words meaningless, inconceivable, all this a dream or a hallucination. "Look at me!"

Another voice overwhelms the cacophony of his own thoughts, strong and sharp. Renji! Zabimaru bellows in a tone that suffers no disobedience. Control yourself! This is our fight. We haven't lost yet. Look at him!

He looks.

The effort seeming to shake him to the bone, Ichigo, leaning up on one trembling arm, lifts Zabimaru. "Do it!"

Straining for a steady throw, Ichigo slings Renji's own sword hilt-first at him. He has no chance to question or second-guess—the hilt slams into his palm, his fingers close around the leather-wound grip, and hesitation drains from him. Rukia slumps on the ground on all fours; with willpower he can't question right now, he ignores the damp hiss of her breath.

Everything else blurs away but the clean goal before him as he advances three steps and plunges the blade into Wei's chest. With a rasp, the man falls forward, impaled above the heart. Renji takes the weight of him and pushes himself upright, his mind narrowed to this one purpose. Wei opens pain-clouded eyes at him.

Renji pulls the sword free. He's grown used to the two-edged blade; the heft and reach are solid and agreeable.

"Said I'd fuckin' kill you," he declares low.

Severing the head is the only way to permanently slay a shinigami. He's kept the sword sharp and oiled, but it takes more than one blow: blood pools, viscous and abundant, beneath the body by the time he is done.

"That's Vice-Captain Abarai Renji, Sixth Division of the Gotei," he mutters the formal combatant's salute, raking the back of his hand over his face. "Makin' sure you'll never touch anyone I love again."

He's dead.

"Renji?"

Reality squeezes through the red-tinged funnel of his anger, and his heart seems to crawl into his throat. Rukia. He falters at the shame that all but overwhelms him, washing away the rage and resolve and incipient relief.

A hand settles on his arm, turning him around as he follows the tug, and then he has to blink away a sting in his eyes as she glowers up at him with hard indigo eyes. Her face and neck are smeared with blood, but she is whole, alive, breathing in an even rhythm.

Rukia is safe. That was all Wei could ever make him doubt, and nothing else should matter. Why then was she lost in his need for revenge, shadowed by the pain he was put through?

He's dead, his mind echoes, inclement.

"There's something strange about Ichigo's reiatsu. He isn't hurt, but I can't wake him."

"He's dead," he tells her.

"Don't be a fool! Are you listening?" Her ungloved hands are a livid scarlet, blood rubbed into the skin, as she raises them to take hold of his face. "Renji. Ichigo isn't responding, and I don't know what to do."

"Yeah, okay." His training seems to slowly build the correct course of action. The battle is over, now disable or dispatch the last of the enemy, take care of your own, report back. "We gotta do somethin' about the others, too." They took down Wei's retainers, but none of them should have fatal injuries.

"That is a little better." As if only now realising the state of her hands, she begins scrubbing them with her scarf.

"Right." He finds a brusque tone, pushing back everything nonessential. "And the... the body. Don't think many people are gonna be sorry to hear he's dead."

"It's a capital offence to murder an officer," she mumbles, as if that occurred to her only now.

"I know!" He gestures impatiently. "He was a fanatic, Rukia. You remember how scared that girl—Mei—was of him?"

"Yes, I do."

"Somethin' tells me they might not look too hard if he doesn't come back to Phoenix Gate. I gather her father's the commander there. The others aren't in uniform, so maybe they're his own people."

"That's a great deal of guessing, but we can't stay here. Ichigo needs help I can't give."

Worry about what is real. Save those that you can. Renji ducks into the gatehouse to grab his bag, fumbling it open as he re-emerges. "Almost forgot about it, but..." He holds up the memory modifier, stuffed deep enough in the inner pocket that it went unnoticed when the spirit phone was taken.

"What's that?" Rukia's frown deepens as he explains. "We alter their memories? Are you sure that will work?"

"If you don't wanna test it—"

"No. That's... I do not like the thought of killing them."

He isn't even certain if he agrees, but simply nods. They stun the three and bind them hand and foot. Renji flashes the modifier at each one and doesn't voice the thought that left here, they are demon bait in any case. That isn't his concern.

Last of all, he lays Wei's body and head on a blanket and bundles them up into the makeshift shroud. Rukia watches him work. "What will you do with him?"

"We bury the dead in the sea." He shoulders the bundle. "The sea's right there." He walks up, then turns to climb the railing of the bridge. The top is broad enough to crouch on. He goes on one knee and she kneels next to him, so his greater bulk shields her from the whipping wind. The waves far below carry froth on their backs.

"You think he deserves a burial?"

"No." Renji pushes the blood-stained bundle towards the edge. "But I'm not like him, and he's gotta know that."

He can never remember what the older captains say at these times. Back in Rukongai, you were lucky to have someone care for your body after death. "So... I'm just gonna give you to the sea, then. Feels like too good a fate, but I figure it'll know what to do with you better'n me."

The body slides off the railing and is lost in the churning waters. Rukia holds onto his shoulder, for his support and hers. Covering her hand with his own, he tries to exhale the heaviness inside him. Somehow, it seems a poor atonement.

"Let's go," he says then.

The gate is permanent; all they have to worry about is the time limit. Sliding Zabimaru into his sash is unfamiliar after carrying him over his shoulder for so long. Carefully, he hoists Ichigo up and over his shoulders, so his back bears his weight. Rukia returns from the gatehouse, bearing both Shirayuki and Zangetsu.

"I don't think we'll need any of our other things."

"Just leave everythin' you won't miss." She may have some personal mementoes, but their equipment will only burden them. "Over this bridge's Soul Society. Either we're stuck in the border or we get to home ground."

"It'd be a sorry end to this journey. You said this crossing depends on intent. We don't have much, but we must give it what we do have."

He gathers himself. "We aren't stoppin' before home, then."

"No."

They dash forward together.

* * *

They plunge through the gate almost abreast. The world lodges into place: a field bathed in an amber sundown, the rich smell of earth after rain, a scratch of crisp wind.

Rukia veers around to help ease Ichigo down into the grass, and Renji bows forward, hands on his legs. She is panting, too, supporting Ichigo's head against her shoulder. Behind them, the hum of the gate stops as the connection cuts off. The gate is under constant watch: even now, somewhere wheels will push into motion to send word ahead that Vice-Captain Abarai and Kurosaki Ichigo have returned, but for now, all he can think of is drawing the next breath.

The sound of people shouting makes Renji finally push through his exhaustion. The gate frame stands on a hilltop, with plenty of open space around it. Someone is going to come up, and they'll be looking at him for a report. What is more, Ichigo needed to be at the Fourth several moments ago.

Footfalls swish through the grass. Renji turns to see, and bows at the man now standing next to them. "Captain."

"Renji." Captain Kuchiki acknowledges him. "A medical squad is on its way."

"Thank you, sir," he says and has never meant it more.

Hurriedly, he kneels next to Rukia and slides an arm around Ichigo. "Here, lemme take him."

"But..."

"Rukia. It's okay." He nods towards the captain. "Go."

Her eyes widen slowly as if in a dream. Captain Kuchiki stands still, his shadow stretched behind him on the hill. Renji would turn away, but he needs to support Ichigo; Rukia's hands have fallen slack in her lap. Clambering onto her feet, she brushes at her clothes as if to dispel the grime and wear on them.

"Rukia." The captain's voice scrapes where it should be smooth and calm.

She's biting the inside of her cheek, Renji can tell. He wonders if the captain notices such nuances in her. What does she remember of him? He tenses in spite of himself. I should've talked to her.

He has never seen Captain Kuchiki hesitate. Now he does, and his fingers curl towards Rukia's shoulder before his hand falls. Renji holds his peace; Captain Kuchiki is looking at her, not him. He's acutely aware he never could report to his captain they'd found her. He knows nothing of what she's been through.

The moment is broken by a squad of the Fourth hastening up the hill. Two shinigami come carrying a stretcher; they set it on the ground and make to lift Ichigo onto it.

"Vice-Captain Abarai?" One of them, a grave-faced woman, bows towards Renji. He's gripping Ichigo's shoulder so hard his arm shakes.

"Oh, sorry." He blinks. "He's not physically hurt, but he needs Captain Unohana. Soon as possible."

"If you'll let us..." She gestures at the stretcher.

"I should go with you." There are too many people around and too many things he needs to do. "I..."

"You are dismissed." Captain Kuchiki sobers him like nothing else could. "I will have your report later."

"Yes, sir," Renji says, hoarse. Past the captain, he looks at Rukia and tries to infuse the glance with reassurance. "I'll be back soon as I can," he adds, that all to her.

Then he settles Ichigo on the stretcher with the woman's help and hurries off along the medical squad.

* * *

The even-voiced, black-haired man watches her across a small distance. Two steps forward and she could touch him.

This must be her brother, she thinks with curious coolness, clad in the mantle of a captain. He's tall and still; she knows the chiselled lines of his face. The strange thing is that he's looking straight at her, from the caked blood on her face to her muddy boots.

She hears Renji's goodbye and wishes so much she could return it. He'll see Ichigo will be cared for, so she shouldn't worry.

Her brother never turns away. The situation is surreal. She wishes this were the twilight of his study, where she could count the tatami and bow at the proper distance.

"Honoured brother." She unslings the swords strapped across her body. They fall with a clatter as her fingers slip. She folds into a full reverence, palms to the ground and angled inward, her brow touching them. "I am sorry to have given you such cause for concern. I offer my humble apologies."

Grass whispers as he steps back.

* * *

<< Part Nineteen: Marrow
>> Part Twenty-One: Misgiving

Thanks to kawree for Renji meta that persuaded my brain back to this chapter, and to my brave raynos for talking this one through with me.

Consider my ideas of Soul Society funerary rites artistic licence.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Nineteen

2009-02-10T15:29:08Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Mature (R)
In This Part: The paths between worlds are guarded. (6100 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Nineteen: Marrow

The campfire surges up into capering tongues of black and blue and red as a gust of air rattles through the still forest. Rukia jerks back, her healing kidou guttering out with the break in her focus. Ichigo bites back a grunt as the numbing, soothing flow of energy dissipates.

"What was that?" Renji releases his arm, shifting up onto his feet. Ichigo follows his movement with his gaze, but absently; something sour and sulphurous burns the back of his throat. The air around them seems to teem with dark flecks when he lets his eyes slide into spirit-sight, everything thrown into shivering motion.

Spirals of dead needles float across the undergrowth. Tendrils of bitter mist billow up to intermingle with them as something moves towards them between the trees with a savage, stately grace.

Ichigo scrambles up and hisses as his shoulder screams in objection.

"Don't aggravate that, you fool!" Rukia admonishes. "I told you!"

He barely hears her. "It's coming."

Rukia grabs Ichigo's good arm, peering around them. "What do you mean? What is?"

"There." He points up the slope that hems their campsite. Her fingers burrow into his jacket even as Renji steps in front of them both. "Rukia, give me Zangetsu." She presses the hilt into his hand. There's an inward tug as she handles his sword; he stifles the feeling.

The creature is shrouded in dark fog. The ground smothers the sound of its iron hooves.

"That thing was in my mind," Ichigo says. He can't hold this back now: their survival is at stake. "It... it pretty much pounded the Hollow to a bloody pulp."

"What?" Renji whips around. "You mean..."

"That is Ma Mian." Rukia speaks over him, her voice weak. She has resumed the healing, though her fingers quiver enveloped in the energy. "The Horse-Faced One. The gatekeeper."

"The what now?" Ichigo's mouth works well enough; it's his eyes that are glued to the beast.

"A local legend. Ma Mian is a lord of the demons. I thought it was only a story." She pauses. "He guards the bridge to Heaven."

"Sounds like they got that part wrong, then." He can feel the throb of the creature's presence like a tide coming in. It warps the wood, tangling branches and tainting the autumnal smells of soft decay.

"He's not comin' for us," Renji says. "Look."

The creature strides past them at the same, inexorable pace. Ichigo's muscles ache. The moment he slips, his control may be gone again, wrested away in the blink of an eye.

"Gatekeeper," he says. "Not to ignore the mortal peril we're in, but how'd that story go, Rukia? About this—horse-faced guy?"

"You—" Her expression melts from incredulity to forced calm. "Very well. Ma Mian is chained to the bridge of worlds. He makes sure only the worthy pass. He can't die, but he must be defeated."

"Ichigo," Renji cuts in. "Check this for me? I'm bettin' there's a barrier around the bridge. Some reason that thing can't get at us."

Laboriously he concentrates. His power is returning faster than Renji's, but the lurking presence of the Hollow is to thank for that. Their mutual survival is the only seal on the Hollow now.

The demon leaps into his spirit-sight, a darkness that creeps like countless humming insects, tiny, sharp wings and feet and other unnameable parts scratching their way into the pores of his skin. Through the blackness fiery eyes spin and sharpen to lock onto him. In spite of himself, he cowers, starting away from the view. With a shaky gesture, he indicates the demon. "No—no barrier. Nothing."

"Then it seems he can't move beyond a set distance from the bridge," Rukia says. "You said he somehow entered your mind."

"Yeah, some kinda spirit image."

"He's like the Espada, then," Renji says, and Ichigo coaxes his brain to make the connection through the susurrus of the demon's presence. Espada can command lower Hollows. Are these things so different? "Only he could take over your Hollow. Never seen that before, but..."

Fear clenches and solidifies into grim resolve inside him. "That means it's gonna want me. I gotta have dented its power when I forced it out."

The tremors in the ground fade as the beast continues its ancient guard round. The slick-serrated feel of it drags away from his senses like soaked cloth from skin. He takes a step back from Rukia. "I can lure it away. You make for the bridge."

"Have you lost your mind—"

"Hell no," Renji finishes Rukia's protest. They both glower at him, the air pregnant with their anxiety. Rukia's brows knit together and her mouth tightens; she's getting ready to scream at him until she has no breath left.

"Guys." Tender strength flows through muscle and ligament in his shoulder; Rukia's healing has run its course, and the tissue is whole, if delicate. "I can outrun it. You saved my skin. I gotta return the favour now. The Hollow's a pain in the ass, but it's actually helping now. My power's recovering faster."

Renji tests Zabimaru's weigh in his hand. "You gotta be sure. I can pull together a couple moments of bankai, but it's not gonna be pretty."

"Right." Ichigo meets his gaze, with as much reassurance and attitude as he can scrape together. Then mine is gonna have to do. He's always been more vulnerable to the Hollow's influence when in bankai, with so much of his reserves focused on outward threats. He'll have to trust their nebulous truce will hold.

Rukia raises her bag from beside the fire. "Take only your sword, so you aren't burdened. Renji and I'll take the rest."

"We don't need most of this stuff anymore." Renji joins her, doubt brushed under soldierly gravity.

"Leave the pots," Rukia says. "The extra blankets, too. Ichigo, put out the fire."

For a moment, he stands there heedless of her request. His teeth sink into his lip. It only took seconds to turn them both around to this mutual purpose. The unspoken faith would stagger him if his mind wasn't too full for any new emotion.

When Rukia comes to him, tying the bag strap across her front with a knot that will slide free at a tug, Ichigo looks ahead again. A more thorough inspection shows a long track in the ground, like a charred, grisly deer-path. Neverending hoof-falls have burned a trail through the forest floor.

"There's your red line." He points.

"Don't stay to show off," Renji mutters darkly from his right. "We don't have half a clue what that thing really can do. Get to the bridge, join up, cross on the fly if we gotta."

"All of us," Rukia adds. She slips between them and clasps both of their hands in hers. Ichigo grasps her slim, strong fingers through the glove.

"All of us," he says under his breath.

* * *

There's no disturbance, no border mark as Ichigo's boot strikes the scorched line in the ground. He keeps Rukia and Renji—pallid and ragged, clinging together—fixed in his sight, never loosening the thread of awareness that cues him to their position. The way can't be long, but Ichigo will maintain his weaving run until both of them touch down on the bridge.

He sends up another erratic burst of reiatsu, letting his power leap into a coruscant peak. They are now inside the demon's circle of influence, even if it was able to exceed the burnt boundary to reach into his soul.

The Hollow is silent. He doesn't know whether to be calmed or unsettled by its seeming absence. He does his best to trace a stumbling path, as if limping with injury and exhaustion, careful not to cross his friends' beeline. A soundless forest is a sign of danger, he remembers, but this wood on the brink of nowhere is dead, carved empty and left to rot until time exacts its slow due.

His breath catches in his throat.

* * *

Rukia locks her right hand with his left. Renji keeps the hold as they dash forward. Their shunpo as swift as possible without sacrificing awareness, he leaves her to track Ichigo's movements and picks out their path. She scampers beside him, scanning the trees.

This is mad, grumbles every part of him save for the one that sees, with unforgiving lucidity, the reason for the separation. Since Phoenix Gate, he's felt split two ways: he must stand on his own, and yet he needs Rukia and Ichigo within sight. When they're near, even marred with weariness, he feels more himself, less the man stabbed blind and mired in the dark.

Damn if he doesn't want to abandon caution, grab Ichigo, and face whatever is coming together.

"Renji?" Rukia tugs at him. "My sword hand. If we must fight, you'd better not squeeze it numb."

"Ah." He extracts his fingers from hers. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Trailing her hand along his wrist and the wide cuff of his sleeve, she grips the fabric of his coat instead. He doesn't afford her a glance, only tries to swallow the dread bloating inside him.

Withered brambles swish against their legs. Some way ahead, the ground slants into a gorge, the near-sheer descent a deadfall of rock and underbrush. Water has once run along the bottom, but now, scree and dirt greet his eye. He halts at the rim of the ravine.

"See a way down? It looks too far to jump—"

Before she can reply, scalding wind and smoke explode from their right. Moss and twigs and detritus are flung into a spiral of harsh air; a pine branch crashes down into Rukia's upper body. With a yell, she swipes the stinging needles away. Renji hauls her in against him and half darts, half dives sideways as the whole tree buckles and crashes down the slope in a thunder of tearing bark and wood.

"Renji—" Her voice is shrill with shock.

He raises his head, still pressing Rukia close with both arms. She pushes at his elbow, but he hardly notices, as he sees what she already saw.

For a petrified heartbeat, it looks like a cluster of branches, bleached wood left standing. Then it dawns on him: something rises from the ground, massive bones that slide and jag into alignment, dark, desiccated flesh winding around them to build a shape the mind can name.

With a wrench that sprays roots and dirt high, Ma Mian heaves his elongated head from the earth and unleashes an ear-bleeding whinny at them. His engraved armour shears up and fastens itself into place, the last piece on a grotesque puzzle. Hands flying to cover his ears, Renji sways as heat shimmers before his eyes, flickering orange-blue. There's an impact to his lungs, the air sucked out towards some nexus...

"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!" His pain-addled mind seizes upon Rukia's voice. Where is she? What's she doing?

"Renji, get down! First dance, Tsukishirou!"

Her shouted word is a command he's heeded unthinking almost as long as he can recall. He throws himself flat. Fire surges forward in a roaring column. Rukia flings the icicle roughly into its path, and they collide into a glistening mist of frost and steam.

Groping over his shoulder, his ears ringing, Renji draws his sword and his feet under him.

* * *

It's like watching a whirlwind form. One moment, currents of spirit matter waver, in the next, they wrap together into a filmy black funnel. The presence is a blunt, oiled knife, hacking and sawing and slicing horror through him.

The demon never wanted him.

Then what did it want? "He makes sure only the worthy pass."

He has no time, no time at all, for stories or riddles or any other fucking nonsense.

With a snarl of fury and frustration, Ichigo sprints towards the reiatsu, the blue-laced spike of Rukia's, the auburn glow of Renji's, the overwhelming well of the demon's, fanning out too far on his right.

* * *

From the corner of her eye, Rukia spies Renji rolling up from his dive. He sends Zabimaru soaring through the remains of her shielding icicle, scattered into a water-haze by the force of Ma Mian's fireburst. The pronged blade hooks onto the demon's plate, and Renji yanks it back with a scream of metal. The demon veers towards him, leaving her to angle herself to the creature's right to flank him. She tries to suppress everything but one thought: He's an opponent. He must and can be defeated.

Wraithly flames spring up around her, and she tugs her power into a protective layer. Like the smoke, it seems the fire is more a manifestation of Ma Mian's aura than a real threat. She hears Renji give a smothered yelp. Zabimaru sails wide from a sweep of the demon's foreleg. The strike is a mere silken blur ending in a ring of steel; the demon moves in jabs from one posture to another, like a great, mechanical toy. As the blade rebounds with a flick of Renji's arm, she begins a kidou chant. She may have time before the demon's attention shifts.

Another barrage of tawny flame spoils Renji's offensive, but it buys her the moment to complete the spell.

"Way of binding, sixty-two, Hyappo Rankan!" Lances of concentrated reiatsu fly forward at her gesture. Ma Mian swirls around, the eye-sockets of his skull light with effulgent scarlet, and the shafts scatter like pins tossed at a pane of glass.

Then the backlash of the deflected kidou knocks her off her feet. She smothers her cry, but her ankle twists under her weight. Scurrying up onto her rump, she finds her foot bent into a soft patch between tree roots, throbbing at every nudge to get it free.

The bulk of the demon looms towards her. This is his place, flutters through her mind. We're trespassing.

* * *

As Rukia's kidou breaks, Renji snaps his sword together and leaps at the beast's exposed flank. The clean strike reverberates up his arm, leaving behind mere dents in the plate where Zabimaru's pikes sank in.

It's not working! Zabimaru's snake head drawls, scales rustling in his mind. Let me out. I can take him!

Not yet! He'll have to go into bankai any second, though. He might as well be chipping at a tree with a chopstick: the armour absorbs what force he can put in his blows. "I'm here, you bastard!" he barks. "C'mon!"

As if to prove the emptiness of his taunt, the demon crouches for a jump, even as a circle of fire spirals up around him again. Rukia is somewhere right in its path, the smoke clouding her from Renji's sight.

He'll pick you off one by one! the serpent snarls, full of contempt. Since when have you held back?

"Shut the hell up," Renji grits out acidly, and moves, sword rising to gain momentum for the blow. A flash-step casts him up, fire whispers on his face as he passes the wreath of flame around the demon, then he brings Zabimaru down in a fierce cleave towards the skull.

The creature snaps up a limb, the decayed muscle belying the terrible strength in it. His sword swipes off a disc of bone, smashing the corner of one glowing eye-socket, but then a grip closes around him. Hard talons dig into his body and a rib cracks, then another, a third—before he's thrown to the ground with shattering force.

Breathless, eyes blurred, he still reaches for the blown flare of Rukia's aura, somewhere behind him, tattering out of his sight... His body responds, far too slow. The funnel of flame towers before him. There is no binding or barrier that he could summon fast enough.

He plants his feet and heaves himself up though the movement drags bolts of pain through his battered torso. If this is it, he'll at least meet his fate head on—

Red smears his vision; the incandesdent hue of Ichigo's reiatsu, bearing out of shunpo and at the beast's back.

Then the blast of fire from the demon roars straight at him.

* * *

The shockwave rumbles down the ravine in booming echoes. Twigs and small branches hail from the treetops as Rukia shoos the afterimages of the fireball from her vision. Her ice pillar subsumed the first fireburst; she wouldn't have had a hope of deflecting this one.

She can sense both of them, Renji dull and shivery with pain, Ichigo sharp with intent—he is fighting. Her foot feels loose, and every step hurts, but nothing is broken. With limping flash-steps she dashes towards Renji. The battle is close, though dense whorls of smoke obscure the combatants from her. The resolute core of Ichigo's presence intimates he's faring better out of the two.

"Rukia!" She comes to a halt to find Renji staggering up and scraping dirt and cinder off himself. His clothes are sooty, his exposed skin reddish and raw in places. "You—you okay?"

"Better than you. Renji, I..." The sight of him makes her blink back abrupt tears.

He coughs, presses a hand to his ribcage. "I couldn't hit the damn thing once. He's not even playin', he's just..."

"Wearing us down," she murmurs. "Ichigo's there. What if—" Her foot aches and she knows herself horribly small and tired, carried on a wave of resolve that is finally dispersing.

"No." He touches a knuckle to her cheek, still on his knees. "Rukia, no. No matter what. He won't again. I swear."

He understands as if he could read her heart better than she herself; she doesn't fear death, not her own. It has been her constant companion ever since she became Duan Zhi. What leaves her sick and trembling is seeing Ichigo swallowed by the Hollow—the Hollow she couldn't even remember—or watching Renji bleed dry in her arms, gutted and broken but refusing to let go.

The pain is what she can't bear. The pain of others for her, the depths in it that call to her even when she cannot see what lies there.

Almost ashamed to do so, she doesn't resist the wracking, dry sob, only muffles it against Renji's shoulder.

* * *

His bankai is pouring out through his fingers. Circling the demon is enough to keep it in place, but even Zangetsu's razor blade cannot penetrate the knotted flesh of its body. Sheer rage is all that straps him together.

Sheer rage may be all that keeps it from taking over his mind again.

Ichigo kicks off into a vault; the creature spins with his movement, one eye shining flame at him. Something jolts home even as it swats at him. Slapping a hand on the sweeping limb, he rolls over that fixed point and comes down in a forward flip.

The demon's mask-head is fractured. In a flash of spirit-sight, he can see long streamers of its aura leaking from the cloven eye socket and diffusing into the air. The head. The mask.

One of the hoofed hind legs hammers out at him and he sidesteps, snapping Zangetsu into a desperate block before his head is bowled clean off his shoulders. The blade trembles, but holds. Then his reiatsu crawls and shudders, and his bankai dissipates in his grip. The sealed blade of his sword won't withstand a second attack, so his next action had better be the right one.

Diving to the left, he raises his voice. "Rukia! Renji! The mask!"

Now, if it has to, it can come and take him.

* * *

"Ichigo," Renji gasps into her hair. She swallows to contain any further sounds of weakness, pushing back, needing to stand without help.

"Sorry. I... I didn't..."

"Did you hear him?" He bypasses her apology. Of course he would. Ichigo is fighting, and she has time to bemoan her own shortcomings. She shakes her head violently, then nods in answer.

" 'The mask'," she says as Renji fumbles Zabimaru back into his hand. "What—"

"The skull." His eyes glint with something she almost dares to call hope. "Rukia, the skull! It's a Hollow! I... I struck it in the head, kinda glanced off. Oh, hell, why didn't I think?"

"We pierce the mask and..." This she remembers. She was once schooled in these matters. "He is cleansed. Or defeated."

"Biggest problem is getting that high up." He twists up, and only the movement betrays that his side is soaked in blood.

"Your ribs," she says, automatically.

"I can fight. You're limpin', so don't say a thing. We gotta finish before Ichigo goes down."

Before, he says, not if, but she must agree. They are so tired, tired beyond anything anyone should be asked to endure. They came for her, and now the journey may doom them all.

Strength, Rukia, whispers Shirayuki. We have the skills even for times such as this one. You know. Remember.

She watches Renji unfasten his bag and drop it into the underbrush. His eyes are shut, creases of hurt and focus, as he hefts Zabimaru. The ground quivers as Ma Mian's hoof falls; she tenses for any sound from Ichigo, even as the demon's movements mask his lighter ones.

The silk of the hilt-thread is damp with the sweat of her palm. She's lost a glove at some point of the battle.

I remember.

In her hand, Shirayuki's blade shatters with a jangle of steel. Renji's eyes fly open. "Rukia, what—"

"Get me close enough." She sets her jaw and points across the smoke at the demon. "I can get him."

"With a broken sw—"

"Ichigo has no time. You said you'd manage a few moments of full release. Get me up there and distract him."

Renji's throat works. "Now you're thinkin' again." Hands wrapped on his sword's hilt, the double-edged blade pointed downwards, he goes on, calm and resonant, "Bankai, Hihiou Zabimaru."

The fanged baboon head lofts from the surge of thick reiatsu, the wide, pronged coils settling around them. Zabimaru's movement seems more ponderous than last time, but he lowers his head at Renji's gesture and hovers still and expectant. Past a ridge of vertebrae, Ma Mian is barely visible through the debris in the air.

"Go," Renji says tightly. "I got an idea. Hold on tight. Finish the job. Ichigo..."

She sets a foot in Zabimaru's jaw to pull herself up onto his bony neck, halting as he does.

"I know." Even Shirayuki's cool reason can't make her look away from him. Renji reaches to turn her face down to his. Her eyes flick shut and she grasps a fistful of his scarf as his mouth presses on hers. A tilt of her head deepens the kiss; she allows herself to feel only the impossible warmth of it, to soak in what he's trying to tell her.

"Don't die," he mutters against her cheek, and steps back to let Zabimaru slide up in a whipcord snap of motion.

Rukia fixes her gaze ahead, her left arm hooked through one of the carved slits behind Zabimaru's eye, good foot tucked into his jaw. Momentarily, she is afforded a bird's eye view of the scorched batch of forest around the battle.

The demon prowls the edge of the gorge. Only Ichigo's reiatsu tells her he is still there, but thin, fading, not the wild and reckless depth she wants to sense more than she could say. Zabimaru sidles through the treetops even as she feels him rearing, tension building along his body. In sympathy and dread, she stiffens as well. She has a shattered blade and a viable plan.

If the strike is all one needs, one sacrifices the sword for the strike.

Fire simmers in Zabimaru's throat, the charge of energy making her clutch at her perch. The burning eye of the demon tilts skyward below them. She forces herself to forget the pain, forget Ichigo, forget Renji. Bellowing, Zabimaru gapes his jaws and a torrent of unbearable heat pours down, flame for flame, silhouetting the guardian before the blast drowns him in brightness.

Now! Shirayuki barks, one word.

Rukia vaults free of Zabimaru's brow and falls towards her target, trailing the fire, sword poised in both hands to stab down a blade that isn't there.

"Third dance," Rukia prays as much as commands. "Shirafune!"

The gleaming lance of ice shears between the eyes, one empty, one smouldering, and into the skull. The demon screams; she feels blood ooze from her ear at the din, but Ma Mian is toppling. The next spasm through his body sends her flying from her footing on the sloping skull. Brush crunches as she thumps to the ground.

A crack runs down the demon's face, the surface of the mask broken.

She can't get up in time.

Feet careen across the forest floor, and Ichigo, swordless, stumbling, lunges at her, rolling and grabbing her without breaking the motion. His back hits the ground and their limbs fall askew, but she is cradled in the curve of his body.

There is a faint sound like sand falling. They both raise their heads, breath coming in gasps.

"Damn," Ichigo says. "I forgot. They... they break. When they're purified."

She stares at him. Her fingers come loose from Shirayuki's hilt, laying the blade to rest beside them. "What?"

"Hollows." He appears stuck on this mystifying detail. "Hollows break when... their masks are cut. Rukia, you told me that—Oh, sorry. You can't remember."

The soft hissing hasn't stopped.

The demon crumbles above them, the pieces of its mail clattering to the ground. Chips of bone patter down as the last of the mask splinters. Ichigo levers himself into a sitting position, but his arm stays hooked around her.

Rukia pushes her head under his chin and lets out a watery, helpless laugh. "You remembered. That's good enough."

"But I—" The dry quality in his voice sounds more like Ichigo. "That was the most anti-climactic rescue dive ever. Mine, not yours."

That makes her laugh harder, chuckles that aren't far from sobs, a much-needed outlet for her stress and fright. "Well, thank you anyway. Are—are you all right?"

"It didn't get to me." He seems to comprehend her first concern isn't for his physical well-being. "You got to it first."

"Good. That's..." The only acceptable outcome. "Good."

If Ichigo was about to answer, he's cut short by Renji's shout. "Hey, you two!"

From between the trees, Renji hurries towards them, a hobble in his step, his face alive with elation. She manages a weary, sincere smile to answer his grin. Somehow, we're all right. She can let herself have this moment of unmixed relief.

* * *

They backtrack to the campsite. Gear abandoned during the battle is written off as lost; they comb the underbrush for half an hour before Zangetsu is found. Rukia allows Ichigo to carry her on his back, most of her strength spent on mending Renji's ribs. Shirayuki hangs silent on her shoulder as they resume the last distance of their journey.

Renji walks a few paces in front, sword loose in the sheath. It's as if the whole wood had withdrawn with the defeat of the gatekeeper, standing guard to their passage. She lays her head on Ichigo's shoulder and wishes she could fall asleep. If her eyes droop, the images in her mind chase her awake, too vivid to push away.

The trees give way to a fallow meadow around the bridge. Nothing moves, nothing breathes, as if the ancient pathway were holy ground. The dimensions of the structure seem to defy the mind: the unsupported arch should buckle under its own weight, but the interlocking stones seam it together. There is a small stone hut at the base of the bridge that perhaps once served as a gatehouse. Even though the interior is bare, it offers a roof overhead.

They don't even talk of crossing the bridge today. They set a fire in the old stone hearth, and Rukia makes herself cook a pot of rice, mixed with her last handfuls of water chestnuts. Any sustenance will help them now, albeit it is poorer than she'd like. Ichigo unrolls their blankets into a heap, and they all strip off their outer layers, shaking and brushing the loose dirt from coats and boots.

At last, once they have gleaned out the pot to the last grain, Rukia sits down, and looks at both men in turn.

"I... need to ask you something." They're huddled around the hearth, Renji resting on his back to spare his bandaged ribcage. No matter how tired she is, she can't escape the debilitating terror that froze her when she saw the Hollow—not Ichigo, not Ichigo—coming at her.

It centers on that moment. Not even all that happened afterwards can seem to distract her. Whenever she lets her gaze drift, her mind's eye returns to the mangled, hateful creature bearing down on her through the forest.

"Yeah?" Ichigo sits crosslegged, hands leaned on the floor behind him.

"Shoot," Renji says from the side, after a small pause. "Can't be worse than what's already gone down today,"

When she voices her anxiety, colour leaches from his face. Ichigo hunkers down into himself, head lowered.

"Rukia..." Renji braces his back against the wall. "About that... now's really not the best time."

"Tell me." She manages a scowl. "If I know, I'll have more of a way to handle these... flashes. I'd rather know than let any indecision of mine endanger you again."

"You gotta understand, neither of us was there," Renji says. "It... wasn't him." He gestures at Ichigo, and she knows her face betrays surprise. "It happened a long time ago. This is just what you told me."

"All right, I understand."

Renji takes a moment. His words cohere into a narrative, and pieces of her memory lodge together, building up a sense of a night she might never have wanted to recall.

"This was after Inuzuri, after the Academy. When you went to the Thirteenth, the vice-captain sorta took you under his wing..."

The sound of a man's raucous laughter resounds through fragrant summer air. He knocks back the practice sword in her hand, and sends her to the ground on her backside.

"Up you come, Kuchiki, and try again! Watch your left!" In the next breath, he is already pulling her to her feet. The strong hand releases her wrist almost before the casual touch can rattle her.

"Then, his wife was killed." Renji's voice falls a notch. "So you went lookin' for the Hollow; you, Captain Ukitake an' Vice-Captain Shiba."

Her squad was explicitly told to avoid the forest, but she is in the company of two senior officers now. The dread clawing at her belly is unseemly. The underwood plummets down into a gorge, edged by the twisted roots of gaunt trees.

"It was one of Aizen's crossbreeds. The vice-captain lost his sword, and..." Across from Renji, Ichigo stares into the fire. Rukia hugs herself, her shoulders drawn in so tight it's starting to hurt.

The thing that was her vice-captain leaps at her with macabre alacrity. She cannot even scream in the instant that she thinks he will kill her; she will allow it, because she cannot move. She cannot raise her sword to defend herself.

In a whirl of white, her captain cuts between them, but all she can see are the pitch-dark eyes that show no trace of the man in her heart.

"The change couldn't be reversed." Renji's voice dies. Her knuckles quiver with the clench of her fists around her arms. She tries to let the memories wash over her to the conclusion she already knows.

"I killed him." She can say that and not cry.

"Rukia..." Ichigo shuffles awkwardly up to her. "If it makes you feel better, hit me as much as you want, but... It was the right thing to do. The only thing."

"As if I would, you buffoon. Undo all my hard work," she stammers. She has patched all of them up enough for one lifetime, she thinks.

Renji says nothing, but comes to sit on her other side, setting a hand against the small of her back. She lets him.

"You asked me then," she says, "if I'd be able to kill him."

His hand suddenly gouges into the cloth of her coat. "Yeah."

"Wait," Ichigo cuts in. "You mean me?"

"Yes," she says, feeling surreal to be even discussing this. The memories are so brittle in her grasp, painted on paper that might crumble at the slightest fidget.

"Oh. Oh, fuck."

"I..." Rukia lifts her head. "I thought, if there were no other choice. If it were an act of mercy, I could do it."

"Was it that bad again?" Ichigo sounds no steadier than her. With a jolt, she realises she isn't the only one swamped in painful memory.

"Never saw you the first time, so I can't really say," Renji answers. "It got ugly, for a while there."

"Bad enough you'd ask her to finish me off?" Ichigo's tone is startling in its rawness. "Are you out of your goddamn mind, Abarai? Rukia?"

"Look, you fuckin' scared me! That's not exactly everyday! I wasn't..."

There are too many conflicts, too much tension and hurt in the air. Throwing her hands up, Rukia raises her voice. "Stop it! Stop it, both of you!"

As if drawn by a string, they turn back to her. She gestures as if patting something down. "We're all on edge. That's understandable. We can't sort through everything now."

"But—" Ichigo's jaw is set.

"Leave it be!" She glares up at him. "You two can whack each other black and blue once we reach Soul Society, I don't care, but..."

"I'd have done it myself," Renji says, near subliminally. "Just wasn't sure you weren't gonna kill me before I had the chance."

"Fuck." Ichigo covers his face. "Okay. Can we maybe ease up on the confessions now?"

"That's what I was trying to say! This isn't the time. We need to focus. I..." Rukia meets Renji's eye, and the depth of dammed feeling on his face brings her to a halt. He was afraid, yet he let her go. The thought comforts her somewhat.

"I'm sorry," she finishes. "I know, I started this. I didn't think it would dredge up so many... other issues."

" 'S okay." Ichigo seems pale and drawn. "Talk about all this stuff later, how's that?"

"Might be a good idea." Renji nudges the top of her head. "And about your vice-captain... That was an act of mercy, Rukia. Don't ever forget that."

"All right." She nods minutely. "I won't."

"Promise?" He draws a slow stroke down her matted braid, lingers on the nape of her neck.

"Yes. I promise." She must, but she leaves that unsaid, instead leaning into the touch of his palm. She'd thought she'd feel worse. This is a pain that has once begun to heal. Perhaps in her heart she knows that better than she is able to tell herself.

* * *

They curl together into a heap: Rukia lies in the middle, smallest and most prone to loss of body heat. Even Ichigo presses close under the quilts, angled clumsily against her, hands tucked under his head. Renji's arm rests heavy over both their sides.

For far too long, she listens to Ichigo sleep. Counting his breaths seems to be what keeps Renji from deeper slumber, too; he drifts in and out of a light doze. Clasping Renji's free hand, she leans back into him, borrowing strength, lending faith. Home seems within reach, but she can't even guess at what kind of a homecoming it might be.

* * *

<< Part Eighteen: Beast
>> Part Twenty: Phantom

Graciously beta-read by jaina, sine qua non.

Music Time (Yet Again):

18. Susumu Hirasawa: Niko (the garrison) | click
19. Bear McCreary/Battlestar Galactica OST: Wayward Soldier (running the gauntlet) | click
20. Portishead: Roads (the way east) | click
21. Enigma: Gravity of Love (Rukia and Renji's fight) | click
(22. Bonus stealth track: The Smashing Pumpkins: The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning (Ichigo and the Hollow II) | click)
23. Ookami OST/Masami Ueda: Crimson Helm, Begone! (the guardian) | click

Since incandescens inquired, Ma Mian (Horse-Face) was stolen and suitably adjusted from Chinese myth, where he guards the bridge souls pass on their way to Heaven. There, he's seen with his fellow heavenly bureaucrat, Ox-Head, and features, for instance, in Journey to the West.

(Pictorial spoilers in links!) My version took most of his appearance from the (scary) horse demons of Jade Empire, with a smidgeon of Ookami's (less so) Crimson Helm boss thrown in.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] This wild abandoned star

2009-01-02T00:18:01Z

This story rounds off my holiday spate of writing. Yuletide stories are posted for posterity, and this one marks my annual venture into one Bleach pairing I haven't written before. Please treat this one kindly; as a fanciful indulgence to ring in a fresh new year.

Author: hallowd
Rating: A soft and chewy Mature (R) for sex and swearing.
Category/Genre/Characters: one-shot; drama, waff and a dash of crack; Orihime, Renji, & co.
Disclaimer: Bleach is (C) of Kubo Tite.
Son of Disclaimer: All sexual content depicted is between fictional, consenting parties.
Timeline/Spoilers: The king is dead, long live... Set after the war. Slight spoilers through Hueco Mundo/Fake Karakura.
Summary: After heartbreak, the only way is forward. Renji is cast adrift, and Orihime needs to anchor someone. (9700 words)

* * *

This wild abandoned star: a romance in twenty

1. Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built

It's a cold, fragile spring after the end. They are sixteen, stranded and heartbroken. The love and resolve they shared saved the world, but the blows cracked some of them too deep to piece together.

Tatsuki shoos the others back when the train roars into the station. These last precious minutes are for Orihime, and Ichigo still has no idea why. Her tongue sits in her mouth like a lump of sandstone. She can't swallow to limber it. His scarf is blue wool in perfect contrast to his tousled hair.

"See you, Inoue." He smiles as the crowd surges around them. "I'll call. You take care of 'em all, right?"

"Be careful, Kurosaki-kun." She bites her lip. The scarf hangs askew; she tugs it back around his neck. "I l... I'll write! I will, for sure! I have your address on the coffee table and Enraku is looking after it so it won't get lost."

He exhales in a whump of breath as she hugs him. Because he is going away and they might not see each other after the year is done, just this one time, she clings with all her might.

"That's—that's good," he stammers. "I'll wait for 'em. You look after yourself." He pulls away, she can't contain him, the draw of the world is too strong and Karakura brims with memory. She holds back her tears until Tatsuki's arms come up around her. She is so tired of crying, but her heart takes the opposite stance, and Orihime's head never could mount a defence worth a laugh.

2. To be done with all this measuring of truth

The Central Forty-Six is reinstated late in the spring. It begins the laborious task of restoring lawful order in Seireitei, and spreading a veneer of the same throughout Rukongai. It turns a hawkish eye to the Gotei Thirteen, which has run the whole of Soul Society under martial law. It rakes out the delinquents and the dissenters. Peace will come to all.

Renji kneels on the tatami in a flawless seiza, the knuckles of his right hand pressed to the floor. His sword is laid beside him.

"Abarai Renji-dono. The court martial has decreed the following sentence for your violation of orders and abandonment of post in a time of war." The hooded enforcer rattles off the words in a monotone. Renji can only see the hem of his snowy, ankle-length robe. "Your rank will be suspended and you will be placed on probation until further notice. Charges for incitement to rebellion are under investigation."

His head shoots up. "Rebellion? What the—"

"You brought with you Kuchiki Rukia-dono, then an unseated shinigami subordinate to you."

He could say It was her idea. She came to him her arms full of heavy tan cloaks and seeping nervous resolution. The sneak to the gate was almost a childhood caper for windowsill delicacies, the underlying gravity subsumed in the thrill of a dare.

His captain stands stiff and wordless to the side. Duty and love lie hopelessly tangled, and the final truth that either of them knows is that this must not hurt Rukia.

Renji bows his head again.

"Your captain has interceded on your behalf. The appeal will be considered along with your service record. In the meantime, you are to surrender your vice-captain's badge and your zanpakutou to Captain Kuchiki."

He reaches for the thick silk binding the badge to his arm.

3. Whom he may never see again

"What did they say?" Rukia blows into the sitting room like a gust of winter wind. He keeps his door unlocked. Once he told her she would never need to knock.

"Took my badge and my sword. I get to stay in the quarters for now."

"I will be only temporary, Renji." Her presence froths with a tempest of emotions; he's not fooled by the glaze of calm.

"I wish," he growls. "The Captain-General needs somebody to blame. I got a big mouth and a bad attitude. He's gotta pull the force together. He figures he can string me up as an example, he—"

"You did not have to come," she rasps.

"What, so I should've grinned and let you go to Hueco Mundo on your own?"

"I was unseated, expendable! We both knew Ichigo had gone ahead!"

"You got a seat now, Rukia!"

"That has nothing to do with your court—"

"Yeah, only every fuckin' thing!" He sounds ugly and jagged in his own ears. "The fuckers dared to use you against me, you, when I crawled every damn step up there just to be worth you again!"

Her retort muffled, her hand flies to her mouth. She was never supposed to know, could never know the unfathomed depth of his regard. The way her eyes go wide and dark betrays her comprehension.

"I can't give you a thing now." He hears himself speaking, against reason, against sense. "Got no rank, no... not a thing. Your brother's workin' to get some of the weight off me. He's not gonna be happy afterwards."

"No." He doesn't know if that's a agreement. "Renji... I am sorry. I will speak to him, but I can't... make you any promises. Not now. Not like this."

His jaw works, but no sound forms beyond a choked spasm of breath.

"My apologies," she mutters formally. He thinks if she now bows to him he will shatter, but she brushes past him into the day, the white badge on her arm haloed against the black sleeve.

"Yeah," he says. "I gotcha."

4. We could navigate out position by the stars

Orihime hears from Ichigo in footnotes and bywords, a snatch of how-are-you when Tatsuki calls him, or a tatter of thank-you-doing-well peppering one of Sado's postcards. She writes him letters that she never sends. Enraku guards a basket of them by June and summer vacation. She plants morning glories on her tiny French balcony, the mosquito net rigged so that the tendrils loop around it to sunlight. They open in great scarlet and pink blooms.

They all fade from the top twenty of the school into the nebulous hundreds. Soul Society finished its work immaculately: no one remembers the days that Karakura lost as an otherworldly war raged for its living souls.

Tatsuki makes a barrier between her and the world. Sado sometimes fetches her for walks, either very early or very late. She likes that she doesn't need to talk to him, but may whenever something unplugs the words in her head. When Uryuu comes to visit her, he pelts her balcony railing with pebbles until the tinkling notes draw her to the door. Surrounded by swathes of fabric and spools of thread, they sit in her living room and drink green tea. He wants to make her a sundress with the flowers.

Morning glories can't be found in any cloth store in Karakura, but she sings the virtue and beauty of poppies to him until he relents.

5. But the stars have all gone

Vice-Captain Kotetsu ignores his request to be left awake during the setting of the bones. She makes him drink a syrupy concoction that almost sends him heaving; a gentle whiteness takes over every thought. Works way better than saké, is his last flash of coherence.

He comes to with his arm bandaged and bound in a sling across his torso. He's been given a private room, maybe a scribal holdover from his officer days. The divide drives him mad, this nothing place, this waiting span that grates on him worse by the day. He needs to be something again, before he forgets how to be someone.

Individuality was a point of pride to him. Whatever else, he was Abarai Renji, and any punk that disagreed could take the matter up with his fist or sword.

There's a sword stand in the room. A shinigami isn't lightly separated from their blade. Zabimaru wouldn't quite slot into the rack, he thinks incongruously, being longer than the average zanpakutou to account for his height.

He lets his good arm drop off the side of the bed.

"Knock knock?" Light flickers into the room as the door slides open. "I won't be long! I was visiting Unohana-san, and heard you were here."

To his astonishment, Orihime bustles in in a billow of skirts and long-stemmed flowers that drip off her elbow in a sweep of scarlet, white-veined blossoms. Renji blinks away the layers of stupor from the anesthetic. "Ah, hey."

She plonks a covered dish onto the bedside table. "I got you some taiyaki. That was right, wasn't it? And... I'm not sure if you do it here, but you're supposed to bring flowers when someone's in the hospital." She holds out the armful of irises. "They're gladioli. They reminded me of you. I think their name means 'little sword' in... in Latin, so... I thought that was appropriate?" A nervous giggle bubbles from her throat.

"Thanks." He's surprised, again, now by the sincerity of his own tone. "I don't got a vase, but maybe I can bug a nurse for one?"

"I'll ask!" Two minutes later, she patters back with a ceramic water jug. "They said I could borrow this. Everyone's very kind here. Um, and how are you feeling? What happened?"

He huffs in helpless amusement. "Slow down a bit, Inoue! Pull up a chair..." An arduous turn of his head reveals no likely seats in the room. "Eh, you can sit on the bed, doesn't seem right to make a pretty girl crouch on the floor."

"Are you sure?" She ruffles the flowers into the makeshift vase and comes to perch on the edge of his bed. He shifts his legs to make room.

"I don't say shit I don't mean. M'fine, bit woozy with Vice-Cap'n Kotetsu's horse tranquilliser. Broke my arm in a brawl, nothin' serious."

"You didn't start it, did you?"

"Ya know, I don't start fights, I..."

"I'm not sure I believe you, Renji-kun," she chimes in. "You used to bump heads with Kurosaki-kun all the time."

"Hah, you got me." He lifts his good hand in a cease-fire gesture. "By the way, how's Ichigo? Seen him lately?"

She wilts at his question, then gathers herself with a deep breath. "No. He went away to study for this year. But he calls Tatsuki-chan, and Kurosaki-sensei, and I hear from him sometimes! He's all right. I don't think anything could bring him down, you know?"

Renji nods, well as he can with the pillows placed to support his jolted head. "Uh-huh."

Her fingers hover at the bandage covering his temple, then along the sutured gashes down his cheek. "Um... how bad is your head? Would you like me to..."

"Don't bother yourself." He lays his hand over her wrist, the bones straight and delicate under the skin. She has very small hands. "I know how you feel 'bout usin' your powers. I'll be outta here this time tomorrow. Could use some quiet thinking time, anyway."

Apprehension glows in her face and is dimmed by blessed relief. "I'm sorry. I would... I should help you."

"You brought me tasty edibles and some swanky flowers." He grins. "C'mon, do me a favour, turn that mouth up. There's the Inoue I know."

"All right." Her smile creeps in like a blade of grass splitting the spring snow. "Here she is, every bit of her. Reporting for duty, sir!"

Since she laughs at that, pealing and kind, he joins in her fragile mirth.

6. Look away, look away, look away

The casual observer might overlook it, but a blazing staredown is taking place across the dingy Rukongai bar. The only courtesy shinigami robes earn you here is that everyone assumes you to be a tough son of a bitch when the inevitable brawl explodes across the smoke-stained room.

The wine-stained thug doubles in his vision. That doesn't mean Renji isn't considering him.

"Abarai-kun," Kira says with unassuming patience. "You aren't helping your case. I know it's difficult, but you can't afford to start more trouble." Renji is blurry on how Kira came to sit on the other side of the table. He might not put it past Hinamori, in her hard-won resolve, to have sent his old friend to keep an eye on him.

"M'okay," he mumbles. "What the hell am I s'posed to do? Can't look the captain in the eye, and Rukia..." The alcohol has numbed him enough to speak the name. "Rukia's with the Kuchiki now, glory an' honour an' standing, all in a neat bundle."

"Yes," says Kira as he stoppers the saké jar. "I don't think you can pile the lowlives here high enough to reach her right now."

"Can try."

"Your captain is trying to help you. Have you even looked at Kuchiki-san once since your probation?" Kira has a terrible penchant for pointed words, given how mild he is otherwise. "This is worse than before."

Renji has heard all this logic before. The prospect of sinking a fist into something that will squeal in pain is much more inviting now. He's neither gloomy nor vengeful by nature, but there's a knot of hurt in his gut that won't unwind at anything: drinking, fighting, fucking, he's tried them all by now.

"It isn't about you. It's about lawgivers trying to establish themselves after a war, and going about it in many of the wrong ways."

"That was a second chance. Took forty fuckin' years, an' I screwed it well an' true."

"Ah, now you're just maundering." With a deft movement, Kira pulls the jar away beyond his reach. "Speak to her. While you're sober."

Glowering, Renji pushes himself upright, only to have Kira echo his motion. The man by the counter leers malefically as Kira presses a hand on his shoulder. "Abarai-kun..."

Renji sloughs off the grip. The earthen floor of the tavern yields under his sandals, springy and easy to step on. If the room tilts, at least his feet are well planted.

7. And never more think of me

Orihime never dreams of the faces of those who were slain. Her sleep fills with their screams inside her as she unmakes them one by one. Going to bed with earmuffs doesn't seem to help.

Her sleeping alcove grows stuffy in the July heat. She drags her futon and thinnest sheets into the living room. Lying curled up in the tender coolness of the night, she wonders if she might reach inside herself, and reject her heart until it would be smooth and young and know nothing of sorrow.

8. For I am sick at heart, my dear

Karakura languishes under a heady, smog-laden haze. A wind whirls and capers through the street stalls and the foliage of the gnarled cherry trees, albeit its effort to ease the air is vain. The sweltering day doesn't bother him; the riverbank is shaded, and the current cools the vicinity. He isn't sure how he strayed here, but he is still fond of the living world. He can skim past people, an errant gust of smoke or dust—and nothing can touch him in turn.

The fragrant grass has burnt to gold and silver-green. The rush of cars, the burn of gasoline on the nearby motorway is filtered by the screen of old trees.

"Renji-kun?"

The grass muffles footfalls, too. He peers up to a pair of bare calves that disappear under the hem of a skirt covered in a riot of orange-sienna poppies.

"Yeah." Twisting up to lean on his elbows, he takes in the twining flowers on her dress, the thick, wind-curled plait of her hair, and the straw hat perched on her head. "What's up, Inoue? Long time no see."

"Oh good, you weren't sleeping." The corners of her eyes cinch. She looks thin, the smooth curves of her cheeks dimpled. "Or were you napping, like a watchdog? I thought I felt someone familiar, and took a detour... though if I take the riverside path to the bridge, it'll actually be a shortcut!"

He reaches up to tilt her artfully frayed hat. "That's a nice one." If there is one thing Renji can appreciate, it's a fine taste in headgear.

"Isn't it?" She picks it up and twirls it on a finger, spinning the gauzy, blue ribbon bound around it. "Tatsuki-chan got it for me, to go with Ishida-kun's dress.

"I'm talking your ear off, am I not? Sorry. How... how's everyone in Soul Society? I think Kuchiki-san still visits Kurosaki-kun..." Her eyes narrow. "I haven't heard anything in at least three months. You must all have so much to do."

"Busy, busy, busy," he agrees. "Well, most people are. Rukia sure is."

"Right! I suppose you wouldn't be napping right beside my secret cherry hideaway if you were busy," she says. "Oh, you can stay. I don't mind. I was going home, but I thought maybe I wanted ice cream, and there's a really nice old woman who has a stall right after the bridge..."

It'd be easy to get lost in her chatter, to drift along the fancies and associations and see where they land you in the end. She has made a grin tug at his mouth again.

"Ice cream? Oh, yeah, cold, sweet stuff." He remembers this. Rukia did manage to afflict him with some of the living world's delicacies.

"Do you want to come? It's all right, I'll treat you."

"You got a hideaway for eatin' it, too?" Renji beats dry dirt off his hakama. "Might be too weird to be seen with a floatin' bunch of ice cream."

"We'll manage! I can always get yours first, then pretend I dropped mine and go back for another. It's a foolproof plan, don't you think?"

"Absolutely airtight."

He walks in the grass alongside the gravel path as they set out towards the stall. The late afternoon is quiet, most sane people driven inside by the heat, but Orihime enlivens the trip by pointing out the place where red dragonflies come in the evening, and the place where she fell into the canal at twelve and was heroically rescued by Tatsuki-chan, even though she floats very well, and the deserted warehouse that would be splendid for ghost-watching, and the best point for watching the fireworks next week, although she might climb to her roof at home.

It takes him a second look to realise the green flash up on the bridge looming ahead is not a dashing child or a car, but a skirt flapping in the wind. Orihime is listing all the ice-cream flavours at the stall, vanilla strawberry chocolate hazelnut mint green tea potential carrot that she's wanted to try all summer...

"Inoue." He tugs her into a halt. "What's that?"

"There's someone up there!" Suddenly, she is all amazement, her mouth round with worry. "I..."

"The hell's she doin'?" The horisontal support beams of the bridge protrude to form little precipices beyond the steel railings.

"Oh, no. She can't be jumping." Orihime shrugs off her satchel and drops her hat on top of it on a bench. "Renji-kun, get me up there." In two seconds flat, Inoue Orihime assumes a position as an emergency hero, her shoulders squared under the straps of her sundress.

"Up there? You sure? It doesn't look like the footin's too solid..."

"You can stand on the air, right?"

"Well, 'course I can." His skills did not go with his sword, bound and sealed in Captain Kuchiki's office. There's a pang of awareness at her words, as if he's indeed forgotten.

"You can be my safety net. You'll even be an invisible one." She smiles her brave little soldier smile. He smothers a welling of memory. "If I fall, you can swoop to the rescue. Like a movie hero."

"Take off those fancy slippers," he says, grinning, decision made. "Or you'll fall for sure."

Her things fall in an askew stack on the bench as he sweeps her up into a flash-step. Saving dead souls was or is his job, one living one won't make a difference.

9. For all the sorrow it will pass, my dear

They alight on the bridge in a whisper of motion. He is very fast; she has no time to even breathe.

Orihime works one leg, then another over the railing. The rust-roughened steel digs into her palm. She isn't sure what she might say; her mind is full of worried evening news reporters and social commentators, useless statistics of lives ending in her own age bracket—she does read the newspapers, contrary to popular belief. Even if she sometimes embellishes on the facts of the news items, this a deathly serious matter, and may she be pardoned the panicked pun.

Orihime crouches down, at shoulder level with the girl. She is tall and gangly, watching the silver water below, treacherously far and low. Down there, someone may be observing. Orihime is here, within reach.

"Hello," she begins. "Are you all right?"

"Ahh!" All colour flees the girl's cheeks. Her jaw trembles; her eyes are wide and very dry, hollow and tired. "Ah, um, I..."

"I didn't mean to startle you. That would be a bad thing now."

Something kindles in the black solidity of her gaze. "Please go away."

"No," Orihime says. "That's dangerous. You do know the water's shallow below there, don't you?"

"It is far enough."

"Oh no, no. I'm very sorry right now, but I can't let you do that." To keep talking is the most important thing. Attention keeps you hanging on; Orihime knows this with frightening intensity.

"I can't do it. This is all I can do."

"It cannot be that terrible!" Orihime puts her free hand on her mouth in sympathy. "I... Tell you a secret, I didn't clear all my exams, either. It worked out. What school do you go to?"

She can't turn her head to check on Renji. His presence licks at her skin; she can all but imbibe his rapt attention. He is there. She can count on that.

"Look, there are options." She tries to think, fast-swift-clever, pell-mell down the lane of reason before the girl lets go. "Even for people like us. It feels like the end of the world, but it isn't. I promise, really truly cross my heart."

"You don't understand!" The girl jerks away from Orihime's fumbling words and fingers.

Her foot slips.

Orihime lurches in a great plunge that drops the pit of her stomach and lifts a shriek from her chest. Her fingers clamp on the girl's. They scrabble together for footholds and handholds and then stare at each other not breathing at all. As a car hums by, the honk of its horn is like a leap of whalesong, a foreign call from another world.

"Th-that was scary," Orihime stammers. Her toes curl on the end of the metal beam. Her grip is steadfast and strong. Sweat trickles between her fingers.

"Yes." The whisper is thin and powerless. Her heart is in her eyes at last; tears well down her cheeks. "Yes."

Orihime reintroduces her lungs to air as kindly as possible. "Would you—would you like to come up with me?"

She holds on and on to the girl's hand. Renji steps up behind her, his aura enveloping her close as an embrace. Setting her foot into his offered hand, she hoists herself back onto the bridge. Her fingers are smeared with rust. There's nowhere the skin would be pierced. That calms her a little.

People cluster along the length of the bridge. Heads press together, fingers point, someone raises a mobile phone. Orihime galvanises herself into damage control.

"It is fine!" she calls out. "Thank you, don't worry! I'm very sorry we disturbed your day. Everything's all right, she slipped."

"Yes," the girl echoes her feebly, splayed on her knees on the bridge. Reaching for a tissue, Orihime remembers she left her satchel so Renji could carry her faster.

"Thank you, Renji-kun. I'm glad you didn't have to catch her," she murmurs.

"Caught you, though," he whispers, his hand a spot of comfort on the small of her back.

"You did," she gasps. "I think... I think I want that ice cream now." He says nothing, only stands there steady and strong.

Hesitant, she waves to the girl when she has found her feet again. Orihime feels like running after her, but that might seem like stalking. The wide-eyed elation in her might be enough to carry her home. If she is very fortunate, she will have family, friends, someone to carry her onward as well.

Renji's hand slides up to her shoulder. "Ice cream? Sounds like a plan to me." Patting his fingers, Orihime resists leaning back into him.

Carrot ice cream still hasn't appeared. They have green tea and chocolate chip instead.

10. Out of longing great wonders have been willed

The summer takes its meandering course. Orihime fills a vacancy at a corner konbini next to the school when the owner's nephew throws out his back in a freak accident with a box of lime jell-o. She isn't allowed on the high shelves, but her smile brightens up business on many dust-draped mornings. The unfortunate online order of two hundred canary cages remains her sole slip at the computer; its prompt cancellation by the more technically-minded Tatsuki—on an off day from delivering the newspaper—keeps her at the job beyond the first week.

After an incident with a jar of dirt, Renji takes care to shrug through the mosquito net and well onto the floor before announcing himself. More often than not, she already pokes her head into the living room.

Sometimes, he can stand, eyes shut, and soak in the spring sunlight of her aura, the brown sugar and street dirt and the desert sand that nevermore seems to leave her skin. She is soft and yielding, but resilient, a riot of sorrow and hope and delight.

Most of the time, she catches him first.

Chad brings her a second-hand DVD player one evening. Her sofa and the outlying floor fill with friends and cheerful debate of the scariest ghosts on film. On other nights, she introduces Renji to the miracle of modern cinema. They discover a shared love of Alien, though disagree on the superiority of Aliens versus Alien 3, and bond over the experience of having fallen asleep during The Seven Samurai. Renji later blames the panfuls of bread she baked the same day. The avocado turns bitter and gummy in the oven, but they squabble over the loaf with the chili and banana mush.

He nods off leaning on the cushion barricade erected in the middle of the sofa. When her attempt to bolster the structure collapses it, his head lands gently on her leg. She sits and strokes his hair, and together they miss the entire last fifth of the film.

11. Bind my dreams up in your tangled hair

"Here." Orihime proffers him her latest handiwork; he strains to remember if he's ever seen her sit with her hands idle for very long. She doesn't seem to be very good with lulls, but he'll be the last person to hold that against her.

Renji touches the interlocking reds and whites on the braided band, threaded through with polished, carved shell beads. It tapers into knotted cords for fastening. "You got clever hands."

"Give me your arm." The way she assumes to be in his personal space doesn't even baffle him anymore. Extending one bare arm, he lets her tug the band snugly around his bicep, where it intersects the broad black stroke of the tattoo.

"I don't think it's as good as the ones at the firework festival market." Her hands linger on the knot. "I'll learn, though. I'll make you anoth—"

"Hey. It's freakin' fine, an' I'll wear it with pride, ya hear?"

"Good." Her mouth widens into a smile. "Thank you, Renji-kun."

It's been a long time—almost two months now, he counts every day—since he's felt a weight on his left arm. They sprawl comfortably across the floor of Orihime's living room, which has the advantage of facing northeast; her flowers apparently suffer some, but the evening shadows slide in to lift the day's sheen of heat sooner. She was in a rush that morning; the drifted sheets of her bed still lie out on the floor.

"I oughta get ya somethin' in return, right?" He cranes his head to rest on a seat of the sofa. "Can't do much fancy stuff with m'hands... less you'd like to learn a sword trick or three."

"Oh, no, it was a gift!" She slumps into the adjacent seat, leaning over to meet his eye from above. "You are amazing, though. They'll all figure it out, just you wait."

They don't talk about the reason behind all his free time, the same way Rukia or Ichigo is simply elided in the conversation. It isn't some unspoken lump darkening their days, but they nudge each other into graceful curves around it. Except when someone stumbles in mid-step.

Dragging a hand across his face, Renji sighs. He's in a false body, having spent the day in the sun, in and out of every imaginable store on Orihime's personal staggering map of the town. Now, he longs for the lack of weight and limit of his shinigami form.

"Sorry," she whispers. "I didn't mean to."

"Never mind." His breath crawls through the bars of his hand.

She slides down beside him, her arm pressing into his, her chin on his shoulder. "Don't... please don't. It will get better, I know it. It can't be forever. Even when it's all wrong, and you've done everything you can think of and still things don't... don't look up, you have to..."

Renji meets her gaze, like he's staring into the sun and knows he will go blind.

"Look up," he repeats. Her hair falls free, long and loose and impractical, as he threads his hand through it.

"Look up," she repeats, a third time, a charm.

For a fraction, he wonders if she's ever kissed someone; then she reaches for him and he is lost in the clement force of her feeling.

He traces his mouth down the dip and swell of her body. Her knees part without hesitation as she bends into his every touch, raw and hungry for the warmth, the nearness, the attention. She wraps herself around him like someone drowning. Her eyes are squeezed shut and her mouth open; she is transfixed, mournful, exquisite.

Head buried in her shoulder, he turns away, to ride out the tide of his own sorrow and desire, as she shudders enfolded in his arms.

12. Can you see it, babe?

The dawn sun pokes tawny fingers through the blinds. She has never shared her futon before, but finds it empty now as her eyelids part towards the shadows on the ceiling. A breeze rustles the morning glories.

He has folded himself in the cramped length of her sofa, one lanky shin hanging over the edge, red hair tangled over the heap of cushions. The tattoos ripple along his exposed back with the rise and fall of his breath. Orihime runs a curious hand down to his hip, pausing at the hem of his stolen bedsheet.

He sleeps too tight for her to disturb. She wouldn't have the heart for it, so she pads away to find a bath, and clothes, and leaves him to his dreams. Once the soft, buttery waft of the waffles has filled her kitchen, she sets the table for two with the simplicity of having an overnight guest. She has grown into the habit of coffee and milk in the morning, but puts a pot of tea to brew just in case.

She goes still when she hears the old sofa springs groan. Fabric rustles, then bare feet stalk languid over the carpet.

"Good morning!" she calls through the doorway. "Umm..."

The clockwork of her thought jitters. Words burst in every direction in merry whirligigs of politeness and platitude.

"Hey." The languor of that word spells out his intimacy with this sort of situation, at least to her flailing mind. His grin is soft, and he's wearing one of her sheets. That makes it impossible to muster scorn at him, if Orihime were even familiar with such a sentiment.

"Um," she begins again. "I didn't think to run a second bath, I'm sorry! There's towels in the cupboard and the blue bottle is the shampoo and the orange one the conditioner. I mean, you'll probably want both, what with... the long hair. Yes?"

With a throaty sound that could be a laugh or a thank-you, he melts away from the doorway. Orihime leans her hands on the counter and strictly tells her cheeks that the tomato impression is quite overblown.

13. Leave your regrets and impossible longings

Mrs. Shinmura from the ground floor runs into Tatsuki on the weekend Orihime is visiting her aunt. Tatsuki, here to water the morning glories, is surprised to find herself at a cross-examination conducted by a single, small lady of sixty-three. Some days earlier, a handsome young man—and such a tall one!— left Orihime's flat at 9:34 in the morning. Mrs. Shinmura didn't even know young Miss Inoue was seeing someone! The someone looked a bit too much like a gang member for comfort, she should say. Then again, that Sado boy also has the look of a thug and the heart of an angel, so perhaps it'll all turn out for the best.

"I didn't..." Orihime mumbles to Tatsuki once she's returned. "We didn't kiss, or anything."

" 'Hime..." Tatsuki is caught between solicitude and utter astonishment. Orihime soldiers into the opening.

"But it isn't like that! He-slept-on-the-sofa-and-I-made-him-breakfast."

"And your corner gossip caught him practically climbing down from your balcony," Tatsuki says with the gentleness she gives no one but Orihime. "Look... I wanna know what happened, that's all. Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm all right!" The assurance leaps onto her tongue, shining and sincere. "It... well..."

Even so, Tatsuki's gentlest Look can cut straight to Orihime's heart. Cradling her glass with both hands, she haltingly explains everything. So what about Ichigo? hovers on Tatsuki's lips, but she loves Orihime, and the words never come.

"I'm all right," she says again. "I'm not really sure what now. Isn't that strange? I was so terribly sure then."

"I gotta admit my experience's not really exhaustive," her best friend says, "but I think that's part of the programme."

14. And scatter them across the sky behind you

Autumn sweeps across the pavements. Her job at the konbini runs out, but the promises to take her back next spring flow fresh. Contented by that, Orihime ventures back to school. Her birthday passes with little fuss, for which she is grateful.

She feels old and brittle enough without birthday cakes. When Tatsuki and Uryuu jostle one in through the door between them anyway, she laughs, and basks in their affection and the royal argument involved in setting the cake on her coffee table. Her aunt sends her a new mobile phone as a birthday gift. After Tatsuki painstakingly shows her how to set a different tone for each calling number, she spends an evening fitting theme songs to her nearest and dearest.

Two weeks later, Orihime rushes across the flat and dives at her satchel. Tissues and hairbrush and paperclips and fabric samples and magnifying glass and pens and Swiss army knife go flying as she grabs at the phone while it still rings.

"Hello?"

There is a crackle and a whizz, then a familiar voice, a notch lower and darker than when she last heard it. "Hi, Inoue."

For three seconds, she is speechless. It doesn't help she heard his musical cue all the way to the bathroom. "K-Kurosaki-kun!" Ichigo called, he finally called, and he is calling her alone, with no Tatsuki or Sado standing by.

"How's everything? I kinda just wanted a familiar voice. All's good over here, but..."

"Oh, we're fine!" she hastens to say. "I, um... Ishida-kun's been tutoring me, I think I told you I was having trouble with chemistry, but it's all solved now, and..."

"Yeah, glad to hear it. School's pretty tough over here to, but I'm... hanging in there, you know?"

"I know. So... yes, so are we all! Things are almost the same as always. Have you... done anything interesting?" Oh, but it seems so easy to brush away the things she wrote in the letters, weeks and months ago.

"Went to see the castle outside town. Bit of a disappointment, I guess." He huffs, in the way he has to say it is not a big deal. "You couldn't see too many places inside, and the exhibit of all the armour and stuff was closed. I gotta go again next year."

"Ahh, that is such a pity! I hope you can go again. It sounded so fascinating." She reaches back to a postcard Sado passed on to her, addressed to him, but obviously meant for communal consumption. "Sado-kun told me you'd wanted to go."

Bit by bit, she breaks into full-blown, merry chatter, sharing news from each friend in turn. They all are a skein, spun together by love that doesn't ask its name, but is. That sustains the conversation more than anything.

"I'm already fretting about exams, but it should be fine," she finishes with a gulp of air at the end.

"You'll kick ass, Inoue." A chuckle punctuates his words. "Tell Chad I'm gonna be home when he plays next month, will you? He's not allowed to start before I get there."

"I'll make sure of it!" She nods to the empty room. "We'll wait for you. I'll confiscate his guitar and put Ishida-kun to stand guard if that's what it takes!"

"Thanks." She can hear one of Ichigo's honest, slow smiles taking shape. It warms her even across the endless span of phone line. "Gotta go now, I still got some studying to do. You take care, 'kay?"

"I will. Take care, too, Kurosaki-kun."

" 'Course. See you later."

She lays the phone in her lap. Her hands sit unmoving until the cool plastic is warm and sheened with damp against her palm.

15. And all the interesting shadows

Orihime taps the flickering torch with the heel of her palm. The beam of light draws a dejected arc along the wall of the warehouse.

"It doesn't feel quite the same, when I know I can see them."

"I'd tell ya there's not a beep of spirit activity within the mile, but that'd just ruin the fun." Renji balances on a strip of metal grid walkway jutting out from the wall. She catches him in the beam. The night cold steams both their breaths into puffs of fog in the light. "Guess the air of mystery's not really the same."

"It's all right, Renji," she says. "You have to leave some things behind. I... I'm okay with growing up, at least that way." She'd never tell him to come down before he hurts himself. She only holds her breath until he leaps from halfway up the wall, landing with showy grace in spite of the false body.

It doesn't really matter that ghost-hunting might never be the same. Orihime couldn't ask for a better partner for nighttime jaunts across the nooks and corners of Karakura. He can climb every balcony and fire escape, wrench open every door to bare their dust-riddled secrets. More than that, his joy at it is real, the thrill of the beckoning darkness the same as her own. It dissolves the clumsiness between them before it can even form.

Autumn is for spirits, her great-aunt used to say. When it snows, they go to sleep, and Yuki-onna alone wanders the snowy wood. The harvest moon, though, is bright and ripe with prayer.

Renji is solid, planes of dark shadow and green, borrowed jacket under her torch. Even though he let her tuck his hair under cap and hood to keep the airborne dirt from it, the ponytail now flows down his shoulders.

She doesn't think shinigami are seasonal. In the depth of her heart, she worries a little.

The warehouse is gloomy enough without her misgivings, and they have already combed everything but the back room sealed off with chain and padlock. "Home to shower, then cocoa," she decides. "We've seen this one, haven't we?"

His laughter calls echoes from the broken windows and the rafters. "I'll mark it on the map."

16. I said to the man who'd been sleeping rough

"The evidence suggests there was strategic merit to your... early departure to Hueco Mundo."

Renji stands straight and tall this time. The judicer before him speaks low through his ceremonial hood.

"I hear you, honoured sir."

"We have inspected Captain Kuchiki's appeal," the man carries on, with a useless, pregnant pause at the end.

"Right." He forces his voice to stay even.

"You will be restored in your former position for a trial period of four months, to be made permanent if your behaviour and service merit it at that point."

Will the eminent assholes at the Central say sorry for messin' up my life for months? he wants to sneer. The fury, the frustration, the aimless drifting where only the patience of friends anchored him to any semblance of sanity, the dry desert summer that all but sucked the life out of him; who will replace that? Who will make up for his lost time?

"You have accomplished much in a short time. It is our desire to see you continue in the same vein."

He bends his head to acknowledge the compliment and to hide the twist of his mouth. "Thank you."

It is as if he cannot dare to believe this, for good or ill, just yet. He couldn't refuse the prospect, yet doubt gnaws at him that it will be snatched away the moment he moves to accept it.

"Is... is that all? Sir?"

The judicer's posture or voice does not change. "You are dismissed, Vice-Captain Abarai."

Slowly, smoothly, Renji dips into a deep bow.

17. All the things for which my heart yearns

On the threshold of the training hall, Orihime is caught. It seems she is privy to a rare moment of calm and concentration, stranded from his usual wildness and energy. He flows through a sustained, meditative form, a current of movement from one side of the room to the other. Zabimaru slides through the thrusts and waves without sound, sharp steel to silent air.

Once he stops, she dares to clap in appreciation.

"That—that was wonderful. Sorry. I kind of... got stuck watching."

"Heh, you gotta see me do that in flash-step 'fore it's worth much." Renji bends his head in a bow, but she can see how it is half an act, if one for her amusement.

"Oh, stop it," she chides. "It was amazing, end of discussion."

"Okay, okay." Tilting his head away, he steps to the side of the room to retrieve Zabimaru's scabbard. She folds her hands in front of her. Soul Society isn't a frequent destination for her anymore, but she keeps in contact with the Eleventh, and Unohana, and, a bit more seldom now, Rukia. Orihime cherishes the other girl, but the many dark threads wound around her at present constrict their bond.

She shakes off her musings. She will go see Rukia after this, she decides. She hopes the thread that runs to Renji is merely knotted, not fraying. It can still be spun anew, so strong and shining no one will even notice the wear.

"Just droppin' by, are ya?" He looks her up and down. She maybe only imagines the twitch in the corners of his eyes.

"I was... sometimes Unohana-san wants me to look at an injury. There was someone who had been lost in Hueco Mundo for a week. It..."

"Ouch." He frowns in sympathy. "I don't need any gory details. Did ya get it?"

"I did." Step by step, she realigns herself with the power she cannot cut free of herself. At home, it subsumes itself in the routines of school and work and friends; she knows that one day, she must have peace with it. In his rough-and-ready way, Renji helps, even if she never tells him.

"Enough for me." With a guffaw, he snaps the sword into the scabbard. "So... anythin' I can do for you? While we're on my turf for once?"

She lets out a giggle that rings only a little too loud in the training hall. "Ahah, thank you, I..."

She would have been happy to stand and watch him, knowing he knew she was there, secure and untroubled in each other's presence. She has understood the summer night on her tangled futon was not about either of them; to wish for anything more is too much, too fragile, too precious. The world doesn't abide such hope, let alone two worlds.

Still, she needs to reach. "Um. This might be strange, but..." She inhales deep deep creaking her ribs. "Would—would you teach me swords?"

"Swords? You sure? It's not the prettiest of businesses, ya know." He loosens his shoulders, shaking himself like a dog. "I know you know."

"It's all right! I just... I thought if there was a real reason for me to come here, or..."

His narrowed eyes go wide in turn. He shrugs into his black outer robe, then leans closer until they stand eye to eye. "Orihime. The gate's not exactly ever closed to you lot. We all had some tough times, dealin' with the fightin' and then dealin' with not fightin' anymore, but... you didn't think we'd drop ya like a hot coal when we were done?"

"No, I didn't think so." No, no, that is wrong, and she doesn't want even think about it. "Of course not. I'm... Never mind." She grabs her arm, squeezes marks into the skin through the fabric of her borrowed kimono.

"Ah," he says. "Well, if ya wanna try, no time like the present."

Even hopeless cases may get grace. Orihime smiles up into Renji's face. "Yes, sir!"

18. Gives joy in diminishing returns

It is sort of dumb, standing in the doorway watching Rukia. Even with her back to him, almost hidden by the booth, she will know he's there. Her sleeves are blue today, not black, draping her narrow arms in pendulums of indigo threaded with white and silver.

She says nothing when he saunters inside and slides to sit across from her with every affectation of cocky confidence. Hands curved around her tea mug, she dips her chin in a quiet greeting. "Thank you. For asking me."

He squints, jarred, if not thrown, by her opening. Old familiarity comes to the rescue, and new-found peace with himself. "Figure better me than you. It was me who started this."

"I did not make matters much better."

"True," he says, tasting the sounds. She has her tea, and surely some of the waitresses criss-crossing the common room are eyeing him meaningfully, but he'll decide whether or not to order a drink in just a minute.

"I think... the war taught me how to be a Kuchiki," she says. "I miss being Rukia."

"Guess I wouldn't know." He threads his fingers together behind his head. "Stole my surname from the hakuda teacher at the Academy. You remember, the old grizzled lady, angry as a bear in spring?"

"I do remember."

He counts the beats of silence. "Rukia..."

"You do remember, then." He always liked her eyes, the wood-spring depth and clarity of them. Now, they are wide with demand and entreaty, since Rukia never could quite separate the two. "What happened, Renji? You explode in my face, and... then nothing."

"What do you think?" He could be snide, he could be hurtful; he deemed it his first priority that she must be protected. There's a limit to the truth he can muster. "The probation happened." He can say the word now, only because it is past.

"You couldn't talk to me when they took your badge?" she snaps, but she isn't wholly surprised.

"You couldn't talk to me when they gave ya yours?"

That jolts her. "It was a rushed promotion," she begins. "With the captain so ill, we couldn't afford any more vacancy..."

"Cut the crap, Rukia. Please."

"Forgive me. I didn't mean to." Her fingers curl on the chipped wood of the table's edge. "It was easy to repeat such excuses to myself."

"So we both did some stupid shit. Wasn't the first time, isn't gonna be the last." They are both aware that there was a measure of calculation involved. The blame was diverted to him so she might slide away unscathed. It burns in her; he imagines she will have unbent her Kuchiki propriety to speak her mind to her brother, in the least.

He doesn't blame his captain. He would have done the precise same thing in his place. Rukia is, as she always was, the linchpin of his existence. He would drift lost without her.

The difference, he supposes, is that while she returns his love and faith, she may never take his heart.

"Yes." Apprehensive relief twinkles in her gaze. "We might... try doing it together in the future. It does seem to ask for good company, don't you think?"

"I think."

"Very well. I have your word now."

"See you keep it safe," he says, only a tad bit low.

Rukia raises the cup and takes a drag of her tea. Renji leans forward and lets his spine straighten and ease.

"If I have another, will you join me?" she asks, once a moment has passed. They seem to have both weighed it; he is content with his conclusion, if surprised by the fact.

"Sorry, I gotta head back." He raises an apologetic eyebrow. "Wouldn't do to mess up somethin' like paperwork now."

"Of course. But you owe me a talk later." Her voice is earnest, but the glint of steel in her eye satisfies him better.

"Put it on the tab, 's long enough anyway." She won't need to come collecting that one, he only needs some breathing room. The best and worst thing about Rukia is the way she sits under his skin, in all her intimacy and pointedness.

"I will see you in the vice-captains' meeting, then?"

"You betcha." He leans down to noogie her with one hand. With a small shriek, she sidles away beyond his reach.

"Renji!"

Unfazed, he smirks at her. "Lunch on Monday, colleague?"

Over her shoulder, she casts a smile his way. "You bet."

19. They leap up, then dissipate

He yells at his recruits. He yells at his officers. He bows his head at his captain, then looks the man in the eye and makes his point without saying a word. Captain Kuchiki is astute and intelligent; they speak no more of it.

He isn't offered a captaincy when the retired divisions are refurbished and brought back into full service one by one. The relief exceeds the doubt when he hears the news. There will come a time when they will need him again. For now, he's needed where he is. In the end, loyalty has always weighed more on his scale than glory, a stone to a feather.

Sometimes, it takes a stone to the head to stop him chasing the feather, maybe. Renji lets the analogy unravel at that point, and goes to solve an inexplicable brawl between two squads dragging themselves home from the field. Knocking other heads is always preferable to his own.

One by one, he finds his friends where he dropped them. No one uses that verb but him, and he knows he is a luckier son of a bitch than he deserves. Hinamori frets even as she smiles, Kira lifts a brow at him, and Rangiku demands he salve her wounded feelings with a weekend's solid drinking. Ikkaku merely swears to kick Renji's skinny butt from here to Inuzuri and sing every step of the way if he ever goes on a moping curve without him again.

His life returns into its tracks. The side paths begin to erode, to vanish into the shifting ground, as long as he watches his step.

It is Rukia who finally points out the crux of the problem.

"Where is Inoue?"

20. (Are you) the one that I've been waiting for?

The fountain is shut down for the winter. Birds take shelter in the empty basin with its webbings of frost and last autumn's leaves. Orihime hurries slipping and sliding down the path. Her hood tears from her head and sends her hair swirling this way and that from the loose bun.

Something shone through the day, a dash of red summer. She dropped her groceries, asked the surprised store owner to stash them for her, she'd be right back, and darted across the rush-hour street without looking back.

Her heart turns a somersault as she careens to a stop. Her hand rises into a wave of its own volition.

She wants to weep, and laugh. It is a silly, breathtaking storybook moment.

"Hey," he drawls, with a familiar tilt of his head up towards her watery smile. He slouches on the tiled brink of the fountain, his head bare as if to spite the November wind.

"Hey," she breathes back.

Renji picks the strands of her wind-tumbled hair and swipes them back behind her ear. "Sorry, still don't have much of a seat for a pretty girl. S'cold here."

"I don't care." Gathering her skirt and coat, she drops down to sit on the edge. "I'm very hardy. Never got sick when I was small."

"Sure," he chuckles. "Still wish I did, though. Have a better seat. Unless..." It could be just a careless wave of his arm, a shift for a better position. She grasps it with both hands. She doesn't have to move much at all, only a little to the left, and he folds her snug against his side.

"Yes. That's much better." There is no precipice, no stomach-dropping leap. Orihime floats a little, her heart downy as cotton candy, and settles with nothing but a deep sigh.

"I loved him," she says after a long, speechless moment. "I loved him too much to let it break my heart."

At that, Renji gathers her close from behind until she is spooned against him, his knees on either side of her. "Yeah, I figured."

"Sometimes, I still do."

" S'okay. So do I." He exhales against the nest of her hair.

She kicks her boot lightly against the stone of the fountain. "Did you talk to Kuchiki-san?"

"Uh, she... Yeah, I did." Tension coils in his voice, even when he is so near.

"Good. I don't want either of you to be sad, or miserable, or some other bad thing anymore." Fishing for his hand among the folds of her scarf, Orihime locks her fingers through his chilled ones. Shoulders slumping, he relaxes at her hold. "I tried all of those and had enough really quickly."

"Not sure life works that way."

"We can still try!" She thumps him in the forearm, even as she realises she never was one for loving violence before. He might have rubbed off on her.

"Wouldn't mind that," Renji says, thoughtful. "Got used to missin' you. It... wasn't too good."

She burrows her head under his chin. People stream through the park, to and fro, helter and skelter, but she doesn't need to move. " 'Too good'? That doesn't sound pleasant at all."

"There's no poetry in me, Orihime. It's drinkin' songs or nothin'."

Her laughter shudders against his throat. "I'll take both, thank you! How would that be?"

"Greedy," he quips. "All good. You could use a bit more of that."

"I missed you so much I think I am," she confesses. "You don't even know."

"Try tellin'. I'll hear ya out."

Angling herself towards him, one hand creeping to the nape of his neck, she reaches up and tells him, clumsy, aching, wonderful.

* * *

Apologies and Acknowledgments: I blame tenebris, kawree, and raynos, in that chronological order. Ten planted the seed of a vision, Kari nourished it with warm words, and 'Pea oversaw the writing process. Props to echoinautumn for the Kira cameo, and, because I am forgetful, but the credit is so well deserved, to empath_eia and her wondrous Orihime in Nocturne, which was an inspiration.

The Seven Samurai is a masterpiece, it can stand some loving mockery. Aliens is the best one hands down. This story skims one truly serious issue: no belittlement is meant by the brevity or the lightness.

All titles borrowed from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds without permission. Lyrics from Spell, (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For, The Mercy Seat, Fable of the Brown Ape, Messiah Ward, Carry Me, Come Into My Sleep, Supernaturally, Easy Money.

[fic][Chrono Trigger][K+/PG] Threshold

2009-01-01T18:26:04Z

Originally written and posted for Yuletide 2008.

Author: hallowd
Disclaimer: Chrono Trigger is (C) of Square Enix.
Rating: K+ (PG)
Category/Genre/Characters: one-shot; drama; Frog (Glenn) and Magus (Janus)
Timeline/Spoilers: Set in the game timeline before the final battle. Spoilers for both Frog and Magus's pasts.
Summary: A frog, a sorcerer, a sword, a porch, and a conversation in the dark. (2030 words)

* * *

The fire in the stone hearth threw flickering shadows across the walls, staining the old wood with blue and black tints. The table was cluttered with mugs and bowls, though only his mulled wine still steamed in a small draft. Ayla curled, fast asleep, in one of the high-backed chairs around the hearth, while Robo stood patient watch beside her seat. Lucca and Marle huddled their heads together, Crono on Marle's left succumbing to a snuffling doze.

Frog found it fitting they had mustered in Crono's era, with its bright and pleasant air. It wasn't as foreign as the rich, wild atmosphere of Ayla's bygone home or the bitter, dust-ridden future. Places had changed, but he might still recognise names and structures. The facts of his own time had become the legend and hearsay of this one.

Time flowed onwards, even when they had the power to leap across it.

He was pulled from a halfway thought by the children - perhaps it was wrong to think of them as such, when he had been squired at their age. He stood from his seat, patting Marle's shoulder as she was the last to part from their circle of chairs. The three youngsters waved their good nights and escaped to their beds in a cluster of muffled chatter. He'd be glad if they could find rest tonight.

The cooling evening greeted him with the last glowing blues of a sunset fading behind the woods. Epoch nestled under the trees; they had all agreed there would be little sense in bringing such an outlandish wonder into the square of Porre Town.

No one said what they all knew. Far above the sea to the north and east, the lights of the Black Omen gleamed above the first sliver of the young moon. The great floating fortress seemed to birth little fuss. The moment it had risen from the sea in the faraway past, time had rippled to place it in the skies of all future eras, Lucca had reasoned. Why fear something that had always been there, stolid as the mountains themselves?

Turning away from the ill glint in the sky, he drew the Masamune. The sword was straight and true as ever, lightened by the groove that ran down its length. It whispered against the air as he swung it round, testing the strength that dwelt in the blade. The still town square made as good a practice yard as any.

It was a fine weapon. Finally he felt blessed to carry it into the battle to come. The legacy had been set in his hand and he had grasped it with all his heart.

Lavos stirred, and even with the Wings of Time flying them across the eras, they might not wait forever. Frog had looked at his comrades around the fire and felt pride at each face: clever Lucca, gentle Robo, fierce Ayla, spirited Marle, loyal Crono. They were the bravest people that he knew, boon companions the likes of which he had not dared imagine finding again.

Their company was such a simple thing. He had long been a stranger to hope.

For a while, he fought his own shadow on the street cobbles. He found himself reaching for the stillness of mind that swordplay could bring: a sharp and clean attitude, open to change and ready to act.

With a firm snap, he lodged the sword in the scabbard again. One by one lights in windows went out or were blurred by curtains all around the square. Only the fountain warbled softly in the breeze.

There was a rustle of sound over the drone of the water. Frog halted and looked up at the roof of the inn's veranda. "That be a more comfortable perch than one by the hearthfire, then?"

No answer came right away, and then only a huff of breath.

"A less kind soul might find thy antics amusing. Fighting beside us, thou still may not take rest along us?"

"My rest is my business." He could make out the silhouette now, leaned in the lee of the inn wall against the wind from the sea. It was a peculiar thing to be speaking so with the man he had sworn to slay in vengeance for his mentor and friend. Perhaps it suited his foreboding mood.

"Every living thing demands it," he said, "but perhaps thou art the exception to prove the greater truth."

"I will be ready," said the man on the roof, "and your concern should end there."

"Mistake not curiosity for concern." Frog stepped to the smooth-worn stairs that climbed to the veranda, and seated himself on the uppermost one. He'd surrendered revenge to the greater cause of Crono's recovery.

Above him the glass lanterns on either side off the inn's front door still burned, casting fluttering firelight onto the veranda.

"I didn't make it a habit to tell fireside tales with the Mystics, either."

"Dost thou mean to suggest to rule us?" He fished in his belt pouch for a whetstone, then drew the sword again. "We are an oddball band, to be sure, as Lucca would say, but if 'tis thy desire to conquer..."

The dull thump of boots striking the cobblestones interrupted him. Frog did not look up at the noise, but stroked the whetstone against a tiny scrape in the blade, only visible as the lantern glow rippled across the otherwise flawless surface.

"What is it that you want, Glenn?" Venom licked at the edge of his voice now.

"Do me the favour of not using that name. 'Tis someone I was a long time ago." It was not the sound of that name so much as the sound of it from this particular man. Cyrus had been right about his soft heart, but the years had toughened, if not hardened it. Glenn was wide-eyed with youth and hope and awe of the stalwart knight. Frog bore other burdens.

"Hmph." The veranda railing creaked as Magus angled himself against it. So, he had descended from his lofty solitude to wage a war of words. The bared blade across Frog's lap did not seem to bother him, even as the magic-sundering edge of it hummed against the whetstone.

He would be the last to deny that Magus was a worthy addition to their ranks. The potency of his spells had already turned the tide in more than one battle. His sombre bearing concealed a cutting intelligence, even as he kept his own counsel for the greatest part of the time. Still, even now, a ghost or a shadow hovered there beside them, an armoured spectre whose sword Frog honed for the coming confrontation.

They would stand side by side then.

"Dost thou not find this the least part queer?" he found himself asking, perhaps to keep the silence from pressing too close. "I shall fight alongside thee with the same sword that near vanquished thee."

"You fight with the weapons at hand. I care little for the past," Magus scoffed.

"Thou hast built thy life on the past, Magus. It binds thee even unto death." That much he knew, pieced together from a few hard words the sorcerer had let slip past his stony shell. He had lost much to Lavos, and Queen Zeal's crazed attempt to control the otherworldly monstrosity.

The silence stretched, now crackling with a wary energy. Frog all but wondered if he'd been too bold. The shuttered windows allowed out only soft, slanted lines of firelight, but he could sense the warmth and quiet, cosy bustle of the common room. It seemed very cold on the veranda in comparison.

Then Magus spoke.

"I swore to destroy Lavos." He heard the swish of cloth as the man shifted his weight. "I was unable to do it on my own. That is the sole reason I joined you."

Frog kept his eye on his work, but would not have been surprised had Magus's eye strayed to the glittering shape of the Black Omen, now dark against the darkness save for its eye-like openings bleeding coloured light into the night.

"Vengeance seems a small reason for this fight," he said. "But if it will do for thee, then so be it."

"My purpose has never once changed. I will hardly change it for what you think."

"And far be it from me to assume thou wouldst," said Frog in turn. A weight seemed to lie over them both now; it had dulled the bite and contempt in Magus's tone even as it made his own motions aimless and lingering. There was no force in his fingers, but he kept sliding the whetstone along the sword.

The tasks laid out to them by Gaspar at the End of Time were now completed. They'd restored the Masamune, and equipped themselves with the most wondrous weapons Melchior's genius could devise. Only the last quest remained.

Tomorrow, they would lay to rest their dead and forge a new future, or then die in the attempt. Long ago, he had learned it was better to clean one's heart before any battle, let alone such a one.

" 'Tis easy to be blinded by revenge. I know this well." He turned an eye to Magus. "I sought to kill thee for the longest time. I would have struck the blow, had things gone otherwise."

Magus stood, shoulders stiff under the folds of his heavy cloak, chin angled high, but his expression was not entirely haughty, something shifting under the surface.

"What are you saying?"

He had to turn the words on his tongue for some time. In the end, they turned out the right ones. "Thou art not my enemy. I've fought beside thee."

The sorcerer drew back a step, as if gauging the worth of the words. "I never asked for your forgiveness."

"One need not ask for that which is given." Frog got up on his feet then, like a man gingerly lowering a burden he has borne for too long. "Let us survive tomorrow first."

They were both still for a moment, the frog who had been a man, the man who had tried to harness a god. The wind swept across the square, bringing the soft rustling of leaves from the hem of the forest. He did not shiver, but felt the crispness of the air like something fragile, chips of ice melting in the hollow of a hand.

"I agree," said Magus then, low and guarded.

Frog slid the Masamune slowly into its scabbard, watching as the light slipped and scattered along the blade. Cyrus had spoken to him and lifted some part of the sorrow he still carried.

"I am awaited at the castle, should I live tomorrow," he said, an offering. "My Queen calls me home."

"I haven't given it thought." A pregnant pause followed. Magus's voice was different as he continued. "There's... someone I would find."

That was sacred ground, there; Frog was no stranger to loss. As deeply as he had hated this man, he understood the underlying tremor in his aloof tone. The smooth chill of superiority was one thing, but sometimes, one went cold to protect what lay under the frost of pain and memory.

Albeit he had a guess, he would leave this matter alone.

"Art thou expected back on the roof?" Frog tilted his head in more casual inquiry. "A night this cold asks for a drink, unless it truly be the moonlight that sustains thee."

"Very amusing." Magus made a derisive noise.

"Outright ludicrous, I might say." His throat made laughter a strange sound, but he chortled in spite of it. "Come then, if thou wouldst. Thou hast made my wine go cold in the meantime, I'm sure."

"Their wine had best be palatable, or I'll see it dashed onto the street."

"Thou hast best be careful," said Frog as he let the door swing open behind him. "One might mistake that for a jest."

"Hm." His companion caught the edge of the door with a glowed hand.

One of the lanterns flared, light whirling across the veranda, and then guttered as the door slid shut on their heels.

[fic][FAKE][T/PG-13] Shrapnel

2009-01-01T18:18:05Z

Originally written and posted for Yuletide 2008 as an extra treat.

Author: hallowd
Disclaimer: FAKE is (C) of Matou Sanami.
Rating: Teen (PG-13)
Genre/Category/Characters: one-shot; drama, angst, hurt/comfort; DeexRyou
Summary: Dee deals in fragments. (337 words)

* * *

There is a webbed fracture in the cranium from the impact with the wall. Bone chip and mortar crumb catch in the soft matter beneath. They mix in the blood as it smears on the tile. Self-defense explains, but does not excuse.

Ryou deals with his temporary partner on the clock, and with his constant one in his own time.

Dee deals in fragments.

His ribs are the first to mend. Sick leave compounded with probation leaves him too much time. Ryou grows used to cracking the door to an empty apartment. Comprehension and concern trail each other. Anger only comes later, in a low, welling spasm.

He counts the days. Ryou frowns at the numbers split out by red marker on the wall calendar, only not to mention it.

The drawer that held Dee's gun sticks one day, open enough to bare a jag of darkness. Ryou leaves it the way it is, for once. He keeps his own locked up whenever it doesn't weigh in the holster.

Other people squint through the seams to see in. Dee sloughs them off and they trickle back in. Ryou is grateful, even quicksanded in his own frustration.

The patterns of their life scratch and scream to realign. The clockwork mechanism of recovery runs its course, at least on paper.

Ryou sighs, but bandages ungloved knuckles taken to a punching bag. Dee's hands lie flat and stiff on the kitchen table as he applies the antiseptic. The blood is clean and red on the skin.

Sometimes, the bed lies empty on either side. Closeness grates, absence shatters, but it is hard to know which is better.

Dee deals in red tape. Ryou gathers up the papers that cut up the living room floor. They sit clean and white in perfect rows again.

He leans over the coffee table until he can clasp the back of Dee's neck. His partner tucks his dark head against Ryou's throat and breathes, slow and rasping, so unlike Dee.

Another shard slots into place.

[fic][Bleach][MA] Chill and Carefree

2008-12-09T19:10:19Z

I know. Two 'fic posts in one day. It must be the end of the world. ;) We will resume your semi-regular installments of Deep, Angsty Plotfic after this silly diversion.

Author: hallowd
Rating: MA (NC-17). Small children beware. This is the Internet and I'm not your mother.
Category/Genre/Characters: one-shot; unashamed and cheerful fluff; RukiaxIchigo
Disclaimer: Bleach is (C) of Kubo Tite and all associated holders.
Son of Disclaimer: All sexual content depicted here is between fictional characters who are over the age of consent as determined by USA and California legislation.
Dedication: For jaina, wicked and wonderful enabler, as a ridiculously late birthday treat.
ichi_ruki 100 Themes: #31, "have it your way" and #97, "unlady-like behavior"
Timeline/Spoilers: Pairing/futurefic. No spoilers.
Summary: Ichigo tries out this romance thing. Rukia fondly disagrees. Wintertime foods, killer rabbits and misuse of Ichigo's couch ensue. (This is not a serious story, you guys.) (3700 words)
A/N: This is set in raynos's Swallowing Hot Chocolate 'verse, some years down the road. Thanks to 'Pea for letting me play.

* * *

Kurosaki Ichigo was a man on a mission.

Or at least, he was a second-year college student with his midterms behind him, and a weekend without a single textbook waiting ahead. He'd crammed the books into the closet and heaped his notes on top.

His tiny studio was tidier than it had been in weeks; he'd barred Yuzu from visiting out of fear that she'd faint on the doorstep. Even the kitchen, too small for him to fully spread his arms, was orderly despite being full to the point of overflowing. He propped the recipe book against the rice cooker again. Tiny shrimp in one bowl, not-quite-perfect cubes of tofu in the next, sliced cabbage, and the scent of citrus still on his fingers...

The doorbell rang.

He swore, nearly knocked over the clay pot with a misplaced elbow, and snatched the sauce from the stove before it tipped.

Only one person would be at his door. If she tried to blame the time incongruities that crossing worlds sometimes caused, he'd...

He hadn't seen her in two weeks. He'd grin and bear it. At least she hadn't walked in through the window.

"Hey," he said upon the confirmation of his suspicions. Her cheeks flushed, Rukia smiled as she slipped in past him.

"I'm early, aren't I?" She set her shoes neatly by the door. "The clock on the store window..." She paused at sight of the kitchen. "Oh."

"Sorry. About the mess, that is. Yeah, you're early." Only with the draft of frigid evening Rukia had brought into the room, he realised how stuffed with heat and mixing smells it was. "I was..."

"You... made all this yourself?" Her eyes moved over the ingredients that choked the counter and the disorder he'd left behind.

"I was counting on some time to clean up."

"Did I say anything about that?" She pursed her mouth. "What is this? Or, what will it be?" She lifted the sauce kettle, inhaled the tart aroma of it.

"It's cold out there." He dashed water on his hands. "That made me think nabemono. It's not fancy, but..."

"This is a good time for a winter dish." She had a look of concentration on her face, the stubborn strand of her hair drifting with her breath. He swiped it behind her ear.

"I wheedled Mom's recipe out of Yuzu, I'm not sure how it'll turn out." Rukia turned at his touch, and he was at once accosted with self-consciousness and deep fondness. "I... wanted to finish before you came."

"We used to make this together. When I was in the Academy." Dipping a spoon into the sauce, she took a testing lick. "It is quite right, Ichigo."

He felt the two weeks of her absence melt away. He'd pictured her return in a smoother light, the food done and him not in his worn jeans, shirt-sleeves rolled up and the kitchen a war zone...

"Thanks." He let his hand linger on her neck. "Look, sit down, I'll..."

"Move over, fool. One isn't supposed to cook nabe alone."

"So I should let you blow up the kitchen? Again?"

"If you don't stop bringing that up, I will have to conclude that some male stereotypes encompass even..."

Ichigo sank a hand in her hair and muffled her with a kiss. You picked your survival tactics. Even after over four years, they might backfire, but this one worked more often than not. When they came apart, Rukia let a sly smile claim her face.

"You can start with the radishes." He nudged her temple with his nose. "They might not explode."

She trod on his foot before kissing him again.

* * *

"Dawn of the Zombie Hares?" Rukia scrutinised the cover of the DVD. There was a silhouette of a crouched rabbit on it.

"Well." Ichigo shifted in place. "It had rabbits. And some kinda love story. The blurb's a bit hazy on the details."

"It looks interesting." She took another bite of shrimp. They sat around Ichigo's lone table, the steaming clay pot between them. To herself, she admitted to being touched by his efforts. Their relationship was hardly a new thing at this point, nor were long separations. She had spent a hellish several days in the desolation of Hueco Mundo, then another sleeping and soaking in baths to cleanse the taint of the place from her body and spirit.

The barely screened clutter of Ichigo's studio, the sound of his grousing, and chucking pieces of radish at him for his impertinence, were all a quiet delight she wanted to savour.

"You think?" He lifted an eyebrow.

"You picked it." She mirrored his expression, dousing a piece of cabbage in the sauce.

"Yeah, 'cause of your ridiculous tastes. Blood and guts and bunnies? A wonder I even found something."

"I watch your foreign murder mysteries! Why do the kings always lose their thrones in the first place? They must not be very competent."

"Not that again, Rukia." Ichigo tilted his tea cup with a fingertip. "You want a refill?"

"Yes, please," she said crisply, "Thank you for the meal."

"Well, you helped." He rose to pick up the dishes, but made no protest when she carried the leftover nabe into the kitchen.

"Since you went to the trouble of purchasing it," she said once the table was clean, "perhaps we should give the film a chance."

"Sure." He slumped into the corner of his age-worn sofa. Their tea cups sat on the table. "I mean, that's why I got it. From the rental place."

She poked him fondly. "That was thoughtful, in any case."

He reached over to dim the ceiling lamp. "Mmm. Put it in then, let's see."

She found the right button to make the DVD tray open, then took the middle seat as Ichigo swore at the remote. The gadget had acted up for as long as she could remember, yet he never seemed to replace it. That, too, was familiar. She had missed him. Again there was the subtle distance of all those days apart. She did not fear it, had accepted their peculiar circumstances, but felt it sometimes, the tiny shifts as they remade their places with one another.

"May I—how does that go again?" She gave him a look in the glow of the TV screen. "May I climb into your lap for the scary parts? Isn't that a girlfriend line?"

"Har har," he said, "If you gotta." His hand shuffled along the couch, his fingers shaving the sleeve-cuff of her dress. "Rukia... get over here."

That easily, she fell against his side. On the screen, a girl was running along a hillside while a slow, menacing piano played. Rukia burrowed her cheek into his shirt and let herself slacken into his warmth.

"Better?" Ichigo slid his arm around her shoulders. She nodded against his side.

It was, and she did not care to pretend otherwise.

* * *

Once Rukia cuddled close, he felt like the evening was back on track. The movie pretty much sucked, though he supposed the sheer idiocy inherent in the idea of virus-infused, undead rabbits held it afloat for a few minutes. Still, he—they—had managed the food, and she felt good curled up beside him, one hand rested across his lap.

There was a way they fit together, no matter that they often collided pointy parts first. The whole inter-dimensional dating had concerned him, but he'd found himself better off than most people in long-distance relationships. Rukia was one spirit door away, when he wasn't drowning in his studies or she in her duties as a junior officer.

She sighed. He realised he'd lost a chunk of the killer-hares-digging-under-country-estate scene.

"Bored already?"

"Not precisely." Her fingers traced the seam of his jeans; he felt a hoarse noise dislodge from his throat. "I think I let my mind wander."

"Guess it wasn't much of a movie," he said.

"Oh, no. It's fine."

" 'It's fine' in that tone is Rukia code for 'I've got something on my mind, but I'm not gonna tell 'til you beg me to'." He prodded her in the cheek with a finger. "I know you, dummy."

"Oh, you've seen through my cunning plan." She rolled her eyes. "They should open a place for you in Covert Operations."

"Rukia," he said, an edge of annoyance creeping in, "We don't have to watch the vorpal bunnies, okay?"

She twitched all of a sudden. As he leaned away, he realised she was smothering chuckles into his shirt. "What?"

"You are ridiculous." Her fingers ghosted along his side. "But I suppose I don't mind."

"Sheesh, thanks." He held his breath as she passed a ticklish spot. He had entertained notions of her in his bed, all through the last days. The reality of her there, supple and warm, did nothing to quell them, but he'd wait. Even if she was being unusually tactile. "Gotta have my uses."

"You do." He wondered if she meant to sound sarcastic or reassuring. "I really am fine, Ichigo."

On the TV, someone shrieked blood-curdlingly. Clasping his face between her hands, Rukia kissed him. If there ever was the suggestion of competition, she swept his full attention in that moment. Her mouth was soft and sure.

Somewhere around the tenth kiss or so, he diverted himself into a battle with the remote until he found the mute button.

"That was a tad distracting," she murmured, "Thank you."

"Mm-hm," he agreed, pinned between her and the couch, and happy with his predicament. "Rukia?"

"Yes?"

"You wanna—move somewhere else?"

"I think I like it here." She pressed their mouths together, and oh, this kiss he knew, full of promises she'd make him work for.

"No—no complaints there," he said, "I meant my bed, you know? As opposed to the couch?"

"That is rather forward of you." He caught the quiver of muscle in her cheek that betrayed pent-up giggles.

"You got me." Ichigo spread his arms. "All my fault, 'course; you get all up close and personal, try to kiss me senseless, all to lure me into mentioning the b-word—"

His punchline dissolved with Rukia's straight face, and she pitched forward into a bundle of laughing girl in his arms. She laughed more often these days, at least in his company, but to see her that carefree was a rare treat.

"In fact," she managed after a moment, "I think, no. There are other places in this room."

"Yeah," he said, "there are."

"So, that would imply..."

"Rukia." He knew that glimmer in her eye. "I like the bed. It's comfy."

She kissed him. For the next ten seconds, he forgot the rest of his argument.

"You know, it's you," he said when the finer workings of words clicked in his brain again, "you who always wants to meet up in the living world. If you're tired of my place, you can say it."

"Don't be daft, Ichigo." She had very clever hands that now dwelt on angles of his hipbones. "It is simply more practical."

"The bed's practical." His hand moulded to her back through the warm, heavy cotton of her dress.

"Allow me to persuade you otherwise?" The trace of her finger across his thighs made him suck in a breath.

"Uh, sure?"

She smiled, not the quizzical smirk of before but a real, glad one. Even if he wasn't quite sure what it was for, he had to kiss her then, and draw her back close where she fit and his neck would crick if he held the angle for too long.

It was small price to pay for Rukia pressing up to him, mouth sliding over his jaw to mark the lines of his neck. He'd missed every breathless nuance of this. She tugged at his shirt collar; he ceded the shirt over, but ducked to kiss her as she fought with a sleeve stuck around his wrist.

The kiss twisted into a firm, heady tangle of lips and tongues. His thoughts were melting into the nearness of her, but she seemed unusually intense, less inclined to tease.

In the spirit of experiment, he ran his hands down her sides, then nudged the fabric upwards.

"Mmph," she said against his mouth.

"Yes, or no?" he asked as they parted in the interest of breathing.

"I said yes." Cloth whisked as she pulled her hands through the sleeves. It took some manouevring to get the dress up over her head and off his hands; he threw it over the armrest.

She still favoured one-piece dresses, and her small breasts had been free under it. He brought a hand up along her ribs.

A gasp from her broke their kiss. She pressed her face into his neck. Half surprised at her swift acquiescence, he stroked a circle around her breast, his throat tightening as she whimpered into his skin. He focused on the touch, circling her nipple until it drew into a tight peak under his thumb.

Rukia undid the top button of his jeans with a decisive twist. He jumped as the second one gave way, but, refusing to be deterred, raised her up and ran his mouth over the curve of her breast. Satisfaction wound through him as her fingers scrambled on the buttons, gripping the fabric to keep steady.

Not that her hands between his legs didn't also send a wash of heat through him. He distracted himself by sucking her nipple between his lips, flattening the tip of his tongue against it until she squirmed against him, groaning between her teeth, and nearly tore the fly of his jeans.

"Ichigo," she grit out, "Clothes, off, now."

Better not to push his luck too much.

"Yes, ma'am." He nudged her off his lap and did as told. So she bossed him around. He had to like it by now.

Rukia had shed her clothes, and was now curled against the cushions of the couch, her hair drifting about her face, mussed by his fingers. She looked him up and down, and he shivered despite the familiarity of her weighing gaze.

"Do I pass?" He held out his hand, catching her fingers as she lifted hers in answer.

"Mmm." Her eyes flickered with mischief. "Sit down."

* * *

She watched him lean against the back of the couch, eyes on her, his throat moving gently. If the half-lit sight of him was enough to constrict her chest, flaring that warm ache that built in his absence, it had been too long.

"You gonna come here some time tonight?" Ichigo pulled on their joined hands.

Yes, of course, she mouthed. Her breath hitched as his hand cupped her shoulder. She turned as she slid into his hold, her back to his chest. He let slip a moan of surprise or assent, but leaned down to kiss her with a hunger and a focus that left her staggered.

There was nothing quite like knowing with utter sureness that someone wanted you. The only thing better than that was to want him back, and have him there.

"Rukia," he said, in a low and lucid note, "Rukia."

"Yes," she said, her whim of teasing forgotten, "Yes, and I do mean it." It was a shift of her hips, a brief scuffle as their hands collided, trying to sort out who was pushing whom and where...

She sighed at the feel of him sliding smooth and full inside her, pressed back and down until they were flush to each other. Grinding her hips down onto him, she reached back to kiss him again. He played with her breast until the nipple rose taut with his teasing. She whimpered as he took her hip and the pace changed, slow, rolling pushes and strokes, her body responding without her conscious thought.

She fisted her hand in his hair and nuzzled his neck when the tilt of her head grew clumsy. Sweat smoothed their skins to each other. He dragged a hand through her hair, and kissed the nape of her neck. She felt herself shudder more with the gentleness of the gesture than the touch of his mouth. Fumbling, she found his hand and twisted their fingers together. If her knees slipped on the sofa, it didn't matter, when he ground out a low, delicious sound and clutched tighter at her. Tension coiled between them, fluid and exquisite, swirling in her belly with the sweep of his hand down along her ribs.

Then, the pace hitched as Ichigo shifted sideways. "Sorry," he muttered, "it just... ouch." He unbent his ankle from under his leg and gave her an apologetic look.

"It's—it's fine, you idiot." Her breath was coming back. "I..." Folding sideways into his lap, Rukia realised her leg muscles were tiring, soreness spread by the constant, slow motion. She couldn't think of anything beyond the two of them.

"Worn out already? The great Lady Kuchiki, givin' in—"

"Ichigo," she said, her teeth to the shell of his ear, "I have my hand somewhere you don't want me to squeeze."

"Oh." His eyes went wide, then clenched shut as she did squeeze, gently. "Your... your point's taken. And, ahh, you know if you want me to speak you'd better stop—"

With one more quick, teasing stroke, she let go. He'd wrapped an arm around her, and even the weight of his palm over her hip made her want to squirm. "Speech is not really required, Ichigo."

"Mmm, it helps. 'Specially if you wanna change things halfway."

"Perhaps a little."

"The couch was your idea." He tucked a kiss under her ear.

"It is still a valid locat—ah." She gasped, yielding to let him nip a soft path down her neck. Hands on her sides, he nudged her away from his lap. "What?"

"Just making it easier."

"Well," she said primly, even though the word came out breathy, "that is only fair. Come here then." With a firm grip of his hand, she pulled him with her as she settled onto the sofa, knees and palms firmly against the cushions.

He made a strangled sound, not quite following the motion. "Rukia. That... that's so..." Oh, now he had a fit of propriety?

"So what?" She knew he'd pick up the frothy exasperation in her voice.

"Uhh... inappropriate," he mumbled against her shoulder blade, but he had leaned after her. She wanted him close, where she could soak in his strength and nearness, and she wanted to enjoy this, and the two could mesh comfortably at the moment.

"Ichigo, will you stop being a prude, and—"

"I'm not a prude. Fuck's sake, there's no pleasing you."

That choice of words surely helped. "You were doing very well," she grit out, too amused to be exasperated. "Do I have to..."

He exhaled against the crown of her head. It made her feel her own smallness, the way he could fold himself over her, but a sense of safety came with it.

"Think I can pick it up," he said, distracted. Her scrabbling fingers found his hand and lodged around it, suddenly clamping down. Little by little, his fingers spread on her hip, he made good his word. They coaxed each other, new and tender with the arch of his body above her, with the way they came together deep and slow and just a touch different.

Rukia let her head hang and bowed her back up against him. The feeling swelled languorously, and she tried to glide into it and yet hold back. Each thrust stroked a liquid pleasure up her spine. He was muffling harsh breaths into her hair, but reached down, the soft stroke of knowing fingers drawing a moan from her that she couldn't stop. There was a sound, a word, his name, in her throat, but she could find the breath for it. All that mattered was the deliriously bright heat building between them.

Her release, when it came, blurred her senses as it soaked her and left her drifting down to awareness of her own weight and body again. She felt him tense, a coil of movement that drove deep inside her, and then he relaxed while she still blinked her eyes into focus.

Ichigo tucked himself between her and the back of the sofa, arm flung around her. She found a laugh in her chest. It bubbled up into the quiet room.

"What's—what's funny?"

"Nothing." The bone-deep contentment could have lulled her to sleep. She'd think straight again in a minute. "I think we missed the climax of the film."

"I'd make a bad joke now," he said, "but I guess I'll spare us both. Whoa."

Her whole body seemed wonderfully lax. She just might make him nap here with her. "My mind is not that dulled, Ichigo."

"Well, if you got it, then I don't have to say it."

"Mm-hm."

"One thing, though." Ichigo's voice held satisfied amusement, and oh, he had done well. She could grant him that.

"Yes?" She pillowed her head on his arm. He brushed his fingers through her messy hair.

"Next time, I pick the place."

A gleam in her eye, she wriggled up close and touched a finger to his jaw. "That, we will discuss in due course." Drawing her to him, he tilted her head back so he could kiss her, and she gladly obliged.

At the moment, Kuchiki Rukia was right where she wanted to be.

* * *

P.S. jaina also did the beta, because she's awesome like that.

[fic][Bleach][M/R] The Roots of Heaven: Part Eighteen

2008-12-08T22:25:34Z

Author: hallowd
Rating: Mature (R)
In This Part: Something wicked this way comes. (6000 words)
The Roots of Heaven: Index Page: Previous chapters, pairings, warnings etc. here.

* * *

Eighteen: Beast

The sound of the sea is neverending as it surges against the cliffs. They follow the coastline now, on taciturn, dogged resolve. There is no path to descend to the grey-sanded strips of beach that run parallel to the cliffs. This place is far from everywhere. Even the demons keep their distance.

At Renji's roundabout query, Ichigo could find no foreign reiatsu about him. The tian bin have proven adept at stealth tactics when they so choose; so, he told Ichigo to stay alert. He can hope they'll slip through the noose. The silence between him and Zabimaru has persisted, if in stoic acceptance of the situation. In Soul Society, someone must have a way to erase the mark on his sword-spirit. That's what he tells himself.

He can't bring himself to burden Rukia with his questions. They're almost home.

Renji walks up to the cliff's edge. Rukia seems all but immaterial against the emptiness of the sea, arms around herself. Mist wreathes the water, in paradox with the white-capped waves that crash on the shore.

"I fell somewhere here," she says as he stops next to her. "Shirayuki took me back."

"We just gotta pass through." He'd rather forget his own memories of this frontier. The first weeks of their journey were only marginally better than the return trip. "You're right, this isn't a place I'd like to linger."

"Is that what I said?" She glances up from under the frayed rim of her hat. "Perhaps that's what I meant. Soul Society must be better than this."

"Can promise you it is."

"Are they waiting, Renji?" Her eyes turn to the horizon, where sky and water meld into one shapeless mass. "We... I've been gone for a long time."

"Hey, now. They've got good memories. Bet your captain's gonna be beside himself. And the kids from Karakura. You're practically one of 'em. Stop frettin'." He doesn't mention her brother. As fast as she is getting to know him and Ichigo again, her recollections seem erratic. He's tried not to pass her notions of Captain Kuchiki, because he is unsure what to say. Rukia was more at home at the Kuchiki estate towards the end of the war, but her relationship with her brother was delicate, still so heavy on decorum that Renji had trouble seeing affection underneath.

"You are allowed to fret, but I'm not?"

"I got a lot less on my mind. More space for worryin'."

"Is that so?" She falls silent, and he lets the conversation lapse. They stand together until the cooling night chases them back to the camp in the dead forest.

* * *

It's only midway through the afternoon, but they've broken trail for a while. They should reach the bridge before night. The proximity of it seems to ward away demons; the three of them are the only creatures alive within range of Ichigo's senses.

Almost.

It might not be fair to count the Hollow. After all, he just keeps a madhouse for one in Ichigo's soul. He has stopped speaking and started screaming. The wails tear at his ears and make tracking nothing short of impossible.

The Hollow is not angry. He's frightened out of his skin.

Ichigo can't even guess what to make of that.

Finally, reluctantly, he seeks out Renji. He can't confide in Rukia; she will learn of his Hollow when things are normal. To explain it from the beginning in these circumstances feels unthinkable.

Renji has bowed to wash his face in a stream some way off the camp. The water is icy, but pure, which is supposed to be a sign that the place is safe.

"Hey. Uh, can we..." He tries to put the issue into simple words. "Can we talk?" is a phrase he never wants to utter to the other man. "There's something I ought to tell you."

"I'm all ears." Renji scrubs his face with his sleeve, damp strands of his hair glued to the skin.

"There's something weird here. I know I said I can't feel a thing, and I can't—" He bites his cheek in thought. "Not anything I could put my finger on. It's just... this itch in the back of my head."

"Wouldn't be the first time you got a gut feelin' that turned out true."

He opens his mouth to agree, when a throb of darkness smears across his sight. He twitches, rubbing his eyes to banish the flecks around Renji's face. What the hell is it now, you bastard? he snaps towards the Hollow.

There's no sneering answer. There is a towering sense of vertigo.

"Soon as Rukia gets back, we can—hey! What's wrong?"

Shapes melt in his eyes; Renji's voice is tinny and distorted. It feels as if jagged talons were crushing down on the inside of his skull, gouging into the pliant surface of his mind.

"Shit—Ichigo!"

A seal bursts somewhere inside him. Shards of it scatter, searing bright into blackness. Copper and bile rise in his throat, before a smothering weight sinks him down below his own knowledge.

* * *

"Rukia! Get here right now!" Renji bellows at the top of his voice. Ichigo is clawing at his own face, breath rasping like he's suffocating. Renji grabs at his wrists, trying to wrest his hands away, but he resists with his full strength. The tendons in the his neck are taut as bowstring as he throws his head back.

"Hey now, take it easy, I'm tryin' to help—"

The air thickens like before a lighting strike. Some premonition kicks his senses on alert.

Ichigo shoves him away and more than the blow, the cresting of his reiatsu sends Renji stumbling. He has to unleash his own spirit pressure to cushion Ichigo's aura. The trees tremble under its force—red and white, blood and bone, shinigami and Hollow, twined beyond extrication.

"Oh, no." For a heartbeat, he can only stare.

Ichigo stands up. His eyes glare black through the red-striated mask on his face.

* * *

Renji's shout reaches her a moment before the alien spirit pressure rends across her vision. Rukia drops the firewood, draws Shirayuki and dives into flash-step. Someone grabs her arm and jerks her off course. In the next instant, Renji lets go, having brought them atop an outcropping where the trees are sparser.

"What is happening?" Something stirs the spirit matter around them. Renji is letting his power stream without constraint. "Where's Ichigo?"

"Cookin' up this storm." His sword slides into its released shape. "He's gone Hollow. He tried to tell me somethin', but..."

She hears gone Hollow and nothing after that matters. Cold pours down her veins. "What did you say?"

"Rukia." He turns to face her. "You've gotta trust me. This's a monster on the loose. Ichigo is inside that thing, but you can't hold back against it. It will kill you first chance it gets. Do you understand?" His gaze seems to demand and beg at the same time. She shakes off her confusion.

"I do," she promises him. "How do we help him?"

"He's gotta help himself. All we can do is buy him the chance."

"So we restrain him?"

"Best as we can. How's your bindin' kidou?"

"Serviceable. Depends on hi—the target's strength, of course."

"Unlike anythin' you've seen before." He locks eyes with her. "There's a Hollow inside him. He's supposed to be in control and that thing fast asleep. I'd guess it's this place that's givin' the Hollow a boost."

Renji's expression is severe, but equanimous. There is no doubt in him, and that assures her of his words. She will have faith, in him and in Ichigo. "All right. If he is still resisting, that works to our advantage. We force the Hollow to divert its attention, and he may be able to gain an edge." She surveys the vicinity.

"He's gonna go down fightin', yeah. Sounds like a plan. Hell, I've missed havin' you around in a fight."

Her reply drowns in the noise of branches splitting. They fall away together as the creature crashes down through the trees.

* * *

There are some things you hope to never see as long as you live, and shinigami live long.

This is one of the worst in Renji's memory.

The shape of the creature is humanoid. It lopes through the wood in a jerky gait, head swerving left and right with unnatural range. Rows of cartilage spikes protrude from its shoulder blades. Swirling red stripes cover what the torn clothing exposes of its pallid skin. The full mask, which always felt out of place to Renji on Ichigo's face, is now the only trace of familiarity about the Hollow.

It's Ichigo, goddamn it, it is him, so you gotta pull back from killin' it. He told Rukia to go all out, but in levels of power, she is well behind him. She'll pull her weight, but he's the only one with a fighting chance against this creature.

No doubt it knows where both he and Rukia are. It moves in aimless bursts: it leaps towards them as they shift out of shunpo, then loses interest a heartbeat later. Hopefully that means Ichigo is diverting its attention.

Time to give him a hand. The Hollow prowls along a depression in the terrain, where the stream winds towards the sea. Rukia sprinted off to the far side of it. He can take the thing head-on; she can strike from the sides.

Renji calls on his bankai. Zabimaru's bony coils whip open around him, the skeletal head bellowing in challenge. We fight together, the nue whispers.

Damn straight.

The Hollow snakes towards them through the underbrush. With a thought, Renji unlocks the ridged vertebrae that make up the bulk of Zabimaru's released form. The sweep of sheer power through him is heady, though with it comes the strain that stems from lack of regular practice.

The bone segments cleave into the underwood, obstructing the limber white shape for an instant. Renji draws them back to reveal the Hollow writhing, gouging at the earth. Its sides gush blood from a dozen cuts. They are closing in that split-second glimpse.

The cursed thing is regenerating.

Zabimaru's head plummets down from above. The Hollow leaps sideways like a lizard. With a gnash of razor teeth, Zabimaru shears the tail from its body.

Close! The creature jumps higher, flashing away as Zabimaru rears to strike. Renji swishes into shunpo. He can trust his sword to occupy the Hollow, but he must match its pace as they wend across the forest floor.

Trees splinter as a wall of ice surges into the creature's path. It crashes into a halt. Good work, Rukia! Now—

The Hollow spins about, and Renji realises it has a new target. Some way below him Rukia has stopped, her sword wide. Motionless, she stares as the creature hurtles towards her.

With a burst of speed that might make Ichigo proud, he dives to catch her. The Hollow streaks inches past as he tugs her away, not breaking stride until something in the underbrush snags his ankle.

They land in a heap. Renji spits dirt from his mouth. "The hell're you doin'? I told ya to stay sharp!"

Her eyes look big enough to fall from their sockets. He sends a thought to Zabimaru to cover them, then grasps her shoulder. "Rukia?"

"Something... came over me." She raises herself up on trembling arms. "There was something strange about him, and then he was right before me... that face..."

Oh, hell. Like Vice-Captain Shiba. 'Course. This is not the first time she has seen a friend transmute into a gut-wrenching mimicry of himself. Some time this is for bad flashbacks. "Breathe. It's okay." Her scalp is bleeding; he dashes a smudge of red from her temple with his thumb.

"That... that isn't the point." She schools her face into calm. "Ichigo—there's some outside force affecting him! I felt it. It is like a demon, but immensely strong."

"You mean other than the Hollow?"

"Yes!"

There's somethin' big nearby. Could this get any better? "We've gotta pin him down." He stands up. "Problem is, he's gonna burn through any binding kidou I know in no time."

"I cannot feel him now."

"Means he can be anywhere." Zabimaru hovers above; Renji tries to funnel strength and endurance into the bond between them. Hang in there.

He steels himself for what he needs to ask of her next. Damn it, she was the one who knew Ichigo so well, who always knew the right thing to do. She's also the one who took her vice-captain's life, even if it was to set him free. "Rukia. If it came down to that, could you kill him? To save him?"

She doesn't balk. Her knuckles whiten with her grip on her upper arm. "Not with an easy heart. Not after all we've been through."

"I'm not sure I could, either," he admits. As long as he knows there is the slimmest chance. Ichigo does not submit. As long as he draws breath, there is hope. He's come back before. But if...

Her visage hardens. "Then, I—"

He opens his mouth. Zabimaru shrinks into a protective ball as a hit from above rocks both him and Renji. Renji throws his power out to brace his soul cutter.

"We can consider this once we've stopped him!" she says sharply.

"Any good ideas?"

"This thing is too fast for you, and too strong for me." She points down at their feet. They were a few inches away from splashing into the stream, several steps wide and perhaps equally deep. "But if I can trap it, you can hold it down."

* * *

He is crouched low, curled into himself, hands over his ears, the side of the building cold under his bare feet.

The creature stalks the tilted street before him. Each of its footfalls resonates along the steel and glass of his world. The trees shake, gouts of crumbling leaves scattering into the air. The wind blisters his mouth.

"Get out." His voice is feeble. "Get... outta here."

Where are you? he snarls at the absent Hollow. Fuck you, this is all your fault!

Smoke curls from between the buildings in lazy arches and floats along the vertical gridwork of the streets. He can smell the carrion stench of Hollow in the air.

Old man? he prompts, though there isn't much hope. Zangetsu?

Nothing.

He knows a thing or two about fear: fear for his own life, for his home, for his loved ones. What he feels now twists like barbed wire in his stomach.

His first instinct was to pull back into physical awareness, but an unyielding pressure bars the way. He has no idea what his body is doing. The last time that happened, he nearly devolved into a Hollow.

The thought stifles his breath with a slicing pain.

"Screw this." He drags a hand across his mouth. "Hey! Hey, you!"

He leaps away to land on the asphalt. A vortex of dust and leaves blows against him; the echoing gait halts somewhere ahead of him.

"I'm right here! Got your attention now, you bastard?"

A heavy foot cracks down, and the sound carries to him along metal and glass.

How d'you plan to fight that thing, exactly? asks the voice that chimes in when he's diving ahead too deep. Kick it in the spleen?

If he has to, he damn well will. Not that I'd mind some backup...

Empty-handed, he shrinks into a ready stance.

* * *

Rukia flashes out of the cage of Renji's bankai; the trees hum past her. Shirayuki, I need you now!

I am here. I am ready.

A ways behind her, Zabimaru is swerving back and forth, wound around his master. She spies the Hollow crouching on a rock by the stream.

There!

"Next dance, Hakuren!" The ice explodes outward with a long, gunshot crackle; the creature vaults serpentine above its reach. Rukia slinks into zig-zagging flash-step to foil its counterattack. Best as she can, she circles Renji's position, baiting the Hollow. Her second dance takes a moment to build the energy. The technique is powerful, but she can't make it strike true.

Zabimaru lashes towards the Hollow and misses narrowly when the thing pounces sideways. Still, she can see it is wary of Zabimaru, wise to the sheer strength of Renji and him.

"Drive it to the water", she told Renji. He is doing his best. She must hold up her end of the plan.

* * *

It emerges into view amid swirls of smoke.

The peculiar gravity of his inner world is no problem for Ichigo. It looks like the intruder has to heed it. It walks along the buildings, leaping the spans of emptiness the streets cut in its path.

The skeletal shape stalks on two legs with the jerk-burst grace of a clockwork mechanism. Darkness smoulders in the sockets of its horse-like skull. It might be ironic that whatever the thing is, it resembles a Hollow more than any of the demons he's seen lately.

The impact of its aura nearly floors him. The air dragging into his lungs tastes of rot. Tears break from his eyes. The creature lets out a low-pitched neigh, and the air becomes heat and pressure, squeezing the breath from him.

Where are you? There's a hopeless note to his call. His world is empty save for that unnatural thing. Zangetsu is gone.

What is his body doing?

It took the combined efforts of Hirako Shinji's Visored to keep him contained the one time the Hollow overcame him. There's no warded warehouse now, no barriers to cage him. Rukia. Renji.

I could kill them.

He coughs, and the taste of iron seeps into his mouth.

Fuck no.

"Get out." Fingers hard on the asphalt, he stares at the creature. "If you... if you even think you can use me..."

It already is. Swathes of purple smear across the sky. The grit of the street scrapes against his palms. I let my guard down and it crushed me. His heartbeat skitters. Is that his real heart, or a fragment of his inner reality crumbling away?

Then a chill passes through him: a hair-thin instant of perfect clarity. A distant roar cuts into the sudden stillness.

Closer by, someone groans—a human sound of pain.

"Hey," he says, stupidly, but the realisation sends hope swelling in him. There's someone here, someone in pain, someone in his soul, and that sound was no Hollow.

I'm here. Hear me.

"Hear me!" he shouts. "Come on!"

A shape begins coalescing at his feet: flecks and swirls of white that pull together into the outline of a prone body. He watches the face resolve itself into a weak, undeniable smirk.

"Partner," the Hollow gasps, and the sound of his voice is nearly glad.

* * *

Rukia has to stop. Her lungs are afire with the tumble in and out of flash-step, and she is losing her sense of the battlefield. Renji is somewhere off to her left: his bankai is a furnace-glow against the vicious swell of the Hollow's aura.

Then he slides into her field of vision. Zabimaru archs upwards, too high, his jaws opening as a nexus of energy flares behind his fangs. It gathers too slowly; the Hollow surges into the opening, under Renji's guard.

He can't avoid—

Zabimaru scatters in mid-strike; Renji vanishes in a blur. The Hollow lands in the stream with a great splash of water.

Shaking off her shock, Rukia throws herself forward. "First dance, Tsukishirou!"

She expends the energy so fast the backwash lashes at her like a snapped string. The icicle spins skyward right on top of the creature. Ridges of ice spread through the flash-freezing water, fortifying the base. She can't waste a second, a heartbeat, a thought.

"Next dance, Hakuren!"

Her first dance trapped the Hollow for a mere precious instant, but it is enough. The white wave engulfs the wallowing creature.

Rukia pulls in one laboured breath after another. She spent too much power too quickly. Renji's reiatsu presses against her as he closes in on her position; she feels his exhaustion almost as her own.

Hold on. Just a moment more. She has barely formed the thought when the first crack spears through the ice. Renji stands across the creek from her, eyes fixed on the outline of the creature. The timing is everything now.

The glacier shatters.

Before the Hollow can pull free of the cascading ice, Zabimaru souses down and his jaws snap shut.

* * *

Ichigo has beaten the Hollow into bits of a bony leer before. It is his prerogative.

The horse-headed creature has paused, ground into a halt suspended on the side of the building. A gust of autumn cold, the clean smell of sand lingers in the air. Ichigo scrambles up on his feet. Then, because there's no other decent thing to do, he extends a hand. "Are you—still alive?"

"Been better, partner." The Hollow wraps a clammy hand around his wrist. Ichigo can feel the creak of his joints and bones as he clambers to one knee and up. His body tatters and mends around the edges as he moves, as if in a state of flux.

This is so fucking bizarre that he might faint from comprehending it. "What the hell happened here?"

"That's a fundamental kind of question." Amusement grates in the Hollow's words. "And I've been out of the game for a few rounds."

"There's got to be some way to fight that thing!"

"Sealed," the Hollow says, scuffing a worn-out heel on the asphalt. "Trapped, shut out, crammed in, stuffed in a tin—hey, that rhymes."

"I get it! You're pissed. Now don't make me roll your fucking head."

"To think for a moment there, you seemed happy to see me."

"Shut it, you bastard. I go under, you follow."

"That creature's much more like me than you." The Hollow's grin seems to stretch past his cheeks. The wavering shape of his face makes it even more disconcerting. "I could always reason with it."

"You think I'm stupid?" Ichigo takes aim with his darkest scowl. "You're weak. You can barely stand."

The Hollow slouches against the wall of a building. "Point, partner."

The structure quakes. The creature is moving again; it shifts forward, sticks into place, sloughs ahead.

"Okay," Ichigo says. "Here's a simple question: what is that thing, and how do I get it the hell out of here?"

"Here's a newsflash. Not a fucking clue." The Hollow's eyes slant into razor-slashes of yellow. "I'm you, Ichigo."

His name shudders in the air. He's serious. He's been freed by some freak twist of chance, and he has no idea.

We're both screwed.

* * *

This won't work for long, Zabimaru rasps through the strain of containing the Hollow.

I know that! Just don't let go! Renji knows the stress on both of them. He can't physically feel the creature struggle, but every savage flail or kick dents his power.

"Renji!" Rukia comes pelting across the forest floor. Her hair has escaped its bun, streaming around her head. She seems unhurt, save for the wheeze of exertion in her yell.

"How—" he says, "how's it look?"

"Clear. For now."

Zabimaru's length wraps the Hollow from sight. Every now and then, he shudders, and Renji has to bite back groans of his own. The Hollow's power clashes against his, dragging long, insubstantial scores into it. Using spirit pressure as a rudimentary shield is one thing; the direct contact with the Hollow's aura is like rubbing raw wounds together.

Her mouth twists. "How long can you do this?"

"Long as I got to," he says, half a lie. "You—you watch out."

"I am." Her gaze sweeps their surroundings, but she's half turned towards him, one hand out as if ready to catch him.

She could not. This is a fight of attrition. If he fails now, she cannot take the Hollow on alone. The creature thrashes again with the desperation of a cornered beast. Renji hears the wet noise of pain as if from someone else's mouth. Rukia's fingers dig into his shoulders; she can't hold his weight.

* * *

Down the street, a building shivers. With a sound like a dying sigh, its windows tumble down in an avalanche of shining glass.

"How far are you gonna go?" Ichigo hisses at the Hollow.

"You let them stuff me in a can and nail on the lid. Partner. King. Kurosaki Ichigo." His voice is like paper crumpling. His name is wrong in his mouth. It terrifies Ichigo how thin they both are stretched.

"Don't give me that crap! Like you—" He presses his eyes shut. "We are both gonna get snuffed out any minute. What. Do you. Want?"

"You'd bargain with me? Shouldn't the king put a whip to the horse when it gets uppity?"

He lunges at the Hollow. It's like charging into a human-shaped lump of dough. His hands sink into the cold white flesh that was solid earlier, and he recoils sharply. "What..."

"Name of the game." The Hollow spreads his arms at him. "That old bastard grabbed me to get to you. Woe be you, partner, since it smashed the seals, and—you got it just right—I couldn't beat it back."

Glass shatter above, sending Ichigo into a headlong dive forward. The Hollow just fades and reappears next to him.

"I don't care." Ichigo looks up at the shaking buildings. "I'll come fight you later. We'll sort this out however you want. Help me stop that thing."

"That a promise, king?"

"Yes."

Wind and heat explode along the street. The Hollow tears out of his sight. "Find the old man—he still has a name!"

* * *

He's going to bleed dry. Rukia can do nothing but clutch at Renji. He keeps Zabimaru together, barely. She hears the thump as another vertebra falls free of his dwindling power.

He might let that happen.

Shirayuki? She sounds raw in her own mind. Renji looks unwounded, and yet she feels the pounding of his heart over the thrum of her own. She reaches for her sword-spirit just to have someone answer her. Now that she is out of the frenzy of the fight, grief and horror carve their way in.

The ice-bright bond blossoms under her probe, but loops out without a reply. Shirayuki is there, only she seems not to hear Rukia.

"Renji," she says. "Renji. Don't you dare give in. We have to help Ichigo." She takes his face between her hands to find his half-open eyes. "Do you hear me? Fight, damn you!"

I cannot lose you now.

* * *

If it is only out of spite, he plants his feet. He thinks he'd rather die standing. Or whatever it is that happens when demons break into your inner world and knock out your Hollow.

"Zangetsu!" That is a pitiful shout. He tries again.

The trees along the street have faded into gnarled husks. The creature seems to bleed smoke on every step. Its body is covered in blackened metal plate, a bizarre piecemeal armour. Underneath, its flesh has sunk against bone and muscle. Fire ghosts about its figure; an immense horse raised onto its hind legs. The head-mask is the creamy white of old bone.

Zangetsu. He holds out a hand as he once did. He'd give anything for a sword in his grip.

A hoof falls and twists the steel-framed front of a building. Glass tinkles into shrapnel. The creature advances like it knows he cannot hide: he can run, but it is tireless, impartial, unceasing.

Damn it, I can't—

A bellow resounds from behind him. The wraithly shape of a sleek white bear lunges past him. It lands and snarls towards the demon, lips curled back to bare its fangs. He inhales to shout in alarm, but at the same moment, a long-fingered hand clasps his shoulder.

"You can, Ichigo. You must."

"Zangetsu!"

"I'm here, with some help." He nods at the bear over Ichigo's head. "I am in your debt, old friend."

"As I am ever in yours," it says politely. "Do not speak of it. I must see to Rukia now." Its translucent form vanishes into the air.

"Rukia—that was Shirayuki?"

"Focus, Ichigo." Zangetsu's coat whips back in the waves of heat rolling from the demon. "That creature is a spiritual image, sent out to dominate the Hollow. It was able to free and then conquer him."

"Some kind of mind-control?" Ichigo blinks. "Yeah, I think I've seen this before. Let's deal with that thing first, okay?"

"The creature itself is not truly here, only a fragment of its power." Zangetsu grips his shoulder as if trying to drill through cloth and skin. He's grateful for the support. "We must purge it from this place."

"Good." His heart beats in a churning tempo. " 'Cause, actually, I'd rather not hit anything just now."

"Center yourself. I will help, but you must find the source of that image. There will be a ribbon fuelling it."

"Sure. All right." He shifts into the kidou stance, feet apart, point of balance low.

"Good. Find it, and sever it." Zangetsu places a hand on the small of his back.

He breathes out.

Even through the gusts of spirit matter, he zeroes in on the ribbon. It is like a seam in the world about to rip: a living strand of blackness through the shapes of his inner realm. It twitches in his grip, burning with cold and serrated edges. He forces himself not to let go.

The creature lets out a macabre whinny, and he feels the tremors as it throws itself forward. It knows. It senses his intent. The pulse of alien hatred from it seems to stop his heart as it rends through him—but even as he staggers, Zangetsu pushes him upright.

Taking his right hand, Zangetsu presses something against his palm. "Finish it! Now!"

He brings around the blade in his grasp.

* * *

Someone is calling his name. Renji straightens his back like he had a small mountain on his shoulders.

"Rukia?" There are hands on his shoulders; that would be her.

"I'm here," she says quickly. "Are you all right? Is it done?"

"Think—think so." The whirlpool of spirit pressure around them is lessening. He still fears to release the Hollow. He might have forgotten how, as if his power had cramped onto that one impossible task.

He looks up towards Zabimaru. Let him go. Stay on guard.

Zangetsu is there again, Zabimaru says with uncommon gravity. He holds something up from the coils of his body. Ichigo looks miserably small, limp and senseless. Blood oozes along one hand, dripping from his fingers.

"He's hurt! How bad is it?"

"I... I don't know." Renji's throat tightens. He's too still. There is no trace of the mask on Ichigo's face. Getting onto his feet seems to take too much effort.

Easy. Give him to me. Zabimaru sets Ichigo in his arms. The youth moans, and Renji feels the cloth on his back soaked wet. His spirit pressure billows erratically, but with the softer, warmer edges of Ichigo himself.

He used to weigh more. Renji lets his bankai fade, wobbling at the abrupt absence of it. Damn kid.

"We must get him to the camp." Rukia is there, all business again, examining Ichigo's arm. "There's something wrong with his shoulder. I need light."

He wouldn't stop struggling, Zabimaru says.

Rukia can patch him right up. You rest now.

Once at the campsite. she summons a light to illuminate her inspection of Ichigo's wounds. Renji tries to keep his senses open. Now that the wild flux Ichigo's aura has abated, he tries to sift out the real threat. Whatever did this to Ichigo must be out there. He doesn't know how much of a threat they would be right now, but that's all the more reason to stay watchful.

"The shoulder joint is all but crushed," Rukia says. "This will be tricky."

"Zabimaru had to bite him. Any sign he's comin' to?"

"I hope he won't just yet. He must be in great pain." She's cut away the remains of Ichigo's coat; in the blue glow of her fireball, the wound looks ghastly, chips of fractured bone caught in blood-mottled muscle.

"How's it always him gettin' torn up?"

"You both seem to have a remarkable talent for trouble." Her hand flares with kidou.

"He's worse, believe me. Gets some goal in his head, nothin's gonna stop him." Renji glances away. As inured as he is to gruesome injuries, seeing the healing process up close unsettles him. Better let her work. He bends to rearrange the wood in the fire, coaxing the flames.

The area is too quiet.

* * *

Ichigo gasps.

Scarlet runs along his shoulder in a current of agony, stemmed by a deep, frost-laced purple. It takes him a while to slide back to normal vision; his eyelids part stickily.

"He's awake!" The blur above him resolves itself into Rukia's face. "Ichigo?"

"Yea—ah, shit. Yeah." His other arm seems to work. He tries to prop himself up on his right hand, only to have Rukia grip his sides.

"Do not move, you idiot!"

"Just... just lemme up." He has to rise; he has to see. "What happened?" He manages to wrench himself up. Hovering beside him, she only pulls back once he finds a stable sitting position.

"You are an unbelievable fool. That is what happened." Rukia buries her head in the hollow of his good shoulder. His attention contracts on the choked note in her voice; hesitantly, he touches her tousled hair. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I tried," he says helplessly. He did. He was about to speak to— "Renji. Where's—"

"He's keeping watch. He's all right." She winds her right arm around him, gathering him closer. The position looks awkward; he would not disturb her for the world. The heat of her healing kidou encases his shoulder again.

Lifting his head, he finds Renji standing a few paces away, watching them without a word. Ichigo meets his gaze over Rukia's bowed head. Too many things lurk in his dark, guarded eyes.

"Well?" He tries for a question. It becomes more a plea. Don't just stand there.

Renji stays still for a pregnant moment. Then he kneels down next to Ichigo and grips his arm, taking part of his weight from Rukia. "Good to see you again."

"Mm-hm." Ichigo's temple bumps into Renji's chin. Rukia's hand rests above his injured arm, not quite touching the torn flesh that knits under her kidou. He allows himself to lie back against Renji, to lean into him and only breathe.

* * *

<< Part Seventeen: Wayside
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