Bleach 1. Chapter 1

A/N: Ahh, new story. I'm really rather excited, I do hope that I don't fail your expectations as I had received such wonderful reviews from you all for my last story.

The motivation for this story lay in that Rukia always seemed to be the older one, supporting Ichigo silently through his lows and pains. But inside, Rukia is really the same fragile girl needing love of her own. So, I wonder what would happen if Ichigo is the older and more mature one for once.

Please bear with me as I try out this new genre, and I hope you would like it.

* * *

When he saw her again after fifteen years, two months and six days, he was a man of thirty one, and she was still fifteen. Still so small, so elfin.

It was a hopeless exchange of glances from the first moment, those eyes peeking at him from behind bangs damp from sweat. The same eyes that he had looked into on countless occasions, and the same ones that had bore into his just as many times, showed no recognition of him at all.

The automatic doors closed with a swish behind him. He chuckled to himself, how many times had this happened before?

She leaned the mop against a shelf and waited beside the cash register as he picked out his usual brand of cigarettes, trying his hardest to seem natural. The moisture from his palms accumulated on the plastic film on the cigarette pack, his heart thudded uncontrollably in his ears.

"Would that be all?" She asked while punching in the price, the cash drawer jumped out with a ding. "700 yen, please."

She looked up at him, waiting for the payment. Instead, she found him staring at her with a fearful intent. She shifted uncomfortably on her feet and repeated the amount. It was then that Ichigo was shaken out of his stupor and pulled out his wallet. The drawer closed with another ding and it was his cue to leave.

Smell of stale moisture in the overheated air, humming of the aging air conditioner painstakingly blowing out lukewarm air, and the moisture that made his palm stick with the cigarette pack. It was all so mundane, so irreconcilable with the wild fluttering of his heart that had long been stagnant.

Thinking that he seemed suspicious enough, it was only when he got into his car and slammed his car door shut with a thud, that he let a sharp huff and stole a glance at the convenience store in the rear view mirror. She could have just been someone who looked like her, he rationalized, someone who so resembled her that he thanked her for giving him a flicker of hope that perhaps he could have another final memory of her. He had never frequented this part of the town, so it was entirely possible. Ichigo only came today because the hospital in this end of town had invited him for a consult on a peculiar case.

He laid back against the seat and pulled one out of the pack, lighting it and inhaled deeply. The difficult case had occupied him for the entire morning, and drained all strength from him. Just as when he turned to one of his few solaces and found the box empty, only did he decide to brave the scalding sun to find a convenience store. She had died long ago, he told himself, wearily congratulating himself on the record of having not thought about her since this morning. A new record, really, as at every unaware moment the memory of her bloody little body would float up in his mind. Nonetheless, something ached more than usual at the sight of her, the ache so sweet that he re-sketched her face in his mind, tracing every dear line to crystal clarity.

_I miss you, Rukia_.

* * *

With five minutes left of his break, Ichigo drove back to the hospital and found the conference room already full. Quickly sitting down in his seat, a man who Ichigo recognized to be an attending from the hospital's ER stood at the head of the table with an anxious looking on his face.

"Another girl had just been brought into the ER, with the same primary assessment. A passer-by found her collapsed in an ally due to myocardial infarction with no external injuries, again with unexplained lacerations on the cardiac tissue."

Ichigo ran an exasperated hand down his face and struggled to make something of all the torrents of facts in his mind. Since last week, a series of girls had been brought to the ER. All of them fifteen to sixteen years old, found unconscious due to something like a heart attack and with damage to their heart tissue that was impossible to inflict from outside the body. Nothing drew together in his mind, as all the girls were otherwise healthy with no signs of cardiac disease and someone would have had to come in physical contact with their hearts to lacerate it like that. But the girls were untouched…

Deciding that he was getting nowhere, he stood up and asked:

"Would it be possible for me to see her?"

The same attending looked startled at the strange request, but conceded as no one else in the room was getting any closer to the solution. Following him through the chaotic ER, weaving through bloodied victim of accidents and relatives who fell asleep beside gurneys, Ichigo was finally led to a quiet corner where a small figure lay crumpled under the thin cover. Pale and thin lipped, her black hair partially hid her face from his view. He examined her again, not knowing whether he should be satisfied or more confused to find her pupil reflex and breathing normal, with not surface trauma. Ichigo sighed, at the least relieved that she was stable for the time being. What followed was an afternoon of flipping through medical dictionaries and textbooks, their hopes of finding a diagnosis died with the darkening sky outside that signaled a day's end.

On the way home, Ichigo purposely drove by the convenience store again in the vain hopes of seeing her again. Just to prove to himself that she was only an ordinary girl, not _her_. He did, a glimpse of her smiling face at a customer, and wished that he had not. The entire way home he fought hard to keep down the wave of nauseating desire that the sight awoke in him, for that touch of fey grace that he had not managed to grab onto so long ago. The heated knot in his stomach burned even more at the thought that he would never get a chance to satiate it, that she would never be there to accept the love that he so desperately wanted to give to her.

When he got home, the rare beeping of the answering machine brought no bright news either.

"Ichi-nii, Inoue-san and Ishida-san's wedding is tomor-"

He cut Yuzu's voice off with a touch of the delete button. Not that he was shy of being happy for them, but he had left the place with its past two years ago, and would like to believe that he had left it all for good.

Afterall, he was somebody that even he himself had forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: this is turning out to be quite interesting for me. Writing a mystery is as fun as reading one. ^^

Please give me your feedback as I'm still feeling my way around this genre.

* * *

A few days later found Ichigo in the hospital's ER again, on his way to examine the newest victim that was brought in. By the time he got to the gurney, encircled by a flurry of nurses led by the attending, the unmistakable whines of the defibrillator charging caught him by surprise. He stood slightly out of the way, planning to just observe when the attending caught sight of him and called for him to give a preliminary assessment.

"Dr. Kurosaki, good thing you are here. She's just been brought in, can you give her a preliminary assessment?"

Careful not to get in anyone's way, Ichigo squeezed in beside him and looked down at the girl. Again, no physical injury, pupil reflex normal… His heart shook a little at the violet colour of it, rather like Rukia's if not so lifeless at the moment. Continuing his way down her body to check for any signs of abnormality, Ichigo found himself fixated at the sight of her exposed chest, somewhat flushed looking from contact with the defibrillator paddles. By no means was it erotic in anyway as after years of medical school and practice, patients' bodies resembled nothing more than cadavers. But there was a trace of… what? He searched his mind to name the feeling. Now that he thought about it, the girl from the other day had it too -

_Riatsu._

He shivered and backed away from the thought, telling himself that he was looking too hard for a solution. Even if these were hollow attacks, Ichigo rationalized to himself, the shinigami stationed in this town would take care of it sooner or later. _He_ himself had washed his hands of them a long time ago, after what they had done to Rukia… He only needed to be a good doctor, not Don Kanonji.

Ichigo shook his head and wrote down on the patient's charts the symptoms that he had seen so many times these days. Getting her vitals in shaky order, the attending walked with him backed to the conference room and sighed jokingly that kids today really have it hard, with the supernatural coming after them too. The orange haired man chuckled and said, you don't know half of it.

How could he?

The conference was in a lunch time bustle, completely out of place with the lab coated doctors who were caught in it. Someone was distributing convenience store bentos from numerous plastic bags that donned the same logo as the one that Ichigo had bought cigarettes from days before. Lighting a cigarette, which often replaced lunch, Ichigo caught a few lines of conversation amidst the sounds of eating and talking.

"Buying lunch for everyone isn't easy, I'm glad it's Mayama's turn tomorrow."

"How did you make it back so quickly then?"

"Ah, Kuchiki-chan helped me to load them in my car. I hope it didn't work her heart too badly. She didn't look too well today…"

No one had heard the sudden drop of chopsticks on the table that announced Dr. Kurosaki's departure.

Ichigo's hands shook as they drummed on the steering wheel while waiting at a red light. Why are there so many traffic lights in the two kilometers that separated the hospital and the convenience store? His heart thumped so loudly in his chest that he was having a hard time sitting still, his whole body shook at the excitement of hearing her name. _Kuchiki!_ He shot a glance at the packs of unopened cigarettes lying in a heap in the cup holder. For everyday now, Ichigo had frequented the store for a vain hope to prove to himself that she was not Rukia, each time paying for his cigarette to a different clerk. Gangly teenage boy or mid-aged store manager, but never her.

His steps were still a bit shaky as he slammed shut the car door and walked into the convenience store. In the familiarly lukewarm place, Ichigo was going to walk to the shelves of cigarettes once again but had sudden caught a glance of her small figure bending over the counter, a hand clutching at her shirt front. Ichigo did not need the instincts of a physician to know that something was wrong, running to her within a second to find her undeniably steeped in agony. Her lips, tinged with blue from the lack of oxygen, stood out sharp on her pale face. Each breath that flew feebly in and out of her was losing strength, fading like the light in her eyes.

Rather startled by Ichigo's anxious face, she shook her head signaling that she was okay, afraid that she would scare away a customer. But the collapse of her knees the next moment made it obvious that she was in no position to say such a thing. Without any hesitation, he scooped her up in his arms and charged out of the doors that opened with a swish. Settling her in the passenger seat so he could keep an eye on her, Ichigo ran to the driver's side and was running the first red light within seconds. The entire 3 minute trip to the hospital his eyes kept an anxious alternation between the road and her. Cold sweat poured down her brow from the tight knot that was twisting itself by the second in her chest, every breath seem painstakingly slow, her eyes staring into an empty space from behind half closed lids. Once again, her life seemed to be slipping elusively through his fingers no matter how many others they had helped to save.

The loud bang of the ER doors as Ichigo kicked them over caught a few nurses by surprise, who were immediately alarmed by the small girl in his arms. Barking out orders for asystol and the ventilator, he laid her down in a disheveled gurney. As he swept the damp hair from her face and made it easier for her to breath, he saw a flash of resemblance in her ashen brow with the girl this morning and the one from days back. Before he could make something of it, though, he was shoved the syringe containing the asystol in the expectation that he would take over. Tightening his grasp, Ichigo jumped head first into the frenzy of activity.

It was not a particular dangerous case, a routine case of cardiac arrest. So after moments her breathing lost its spasmic character and she fell into a deep sleep under the sedatives. He told the attending that he had noticed something abnormal in her and thus found the excuse to sit by her new hospital bed. Ichigo examined her face and decided that there was no coincidence, that she was Rukia. This sleeping face, so fragile only when she was least aware, he knew that he now had the power to protect.

His heart fluttered as laughter threatened to bubble over in his throat. Welcome back, Rukia.

* * *

Getting her ID proved to be an unexpected hassle as she carried none with her. Ichigo had to go through the yellow pages to telephone the store owner and informed him of the hospitalization. The man told him that he had no idea regarding the address or relatives of Kuchiki Rukia, making Ichigo's heart shake violently with validation.

_She _is_ Kuchiki Rukia, my Rukia._

He tried hard to keep his voice steady, but the owner had no care other for the fact that the store was unguarded for so long. He did though allow Ichigo to retrieve her effects left in the store. Hanging up the phone, Ichigo chuckled to himself and was more than excited by this change in his daily routine. How long had it been, he asked himself, since he did something other than coming to work and going home to sleep?

By the time he had arrive at the store, the owner was already there to check that nothing had been taken during the absence. Seeing Ichigo, he handed him a simple backpack and told him with some embarrassment that he could not save the job for her _if_ and until she returns. He had no choice but to thank the man and got inside his car with the backpack, frowning a tad and wondering if she would be devastated to know that.

More intrigued by the item in his hands, Ichigo opened the backpack and examined each item like an archeological excavation of the fifteen years that he had not known. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, a key to presumably wherever she lived, a student ID that showed her to be a student at Toho high school, and a wallet that contained about a hundred yen in coins. The results of trying to locate any relatives came up empty also when he found neither emergency contacts nor any signs of anyone he could contact. As a last straw, Ichigo called back to the hospital and gave a nurse her name to run through the system and was told that she was a dependent on the Child Welfare System, an orphan.

The furrow between his brows deepened even more as a dependent, even with a convenience store job with minimal pay, would have no means of paying for the horrendous medical bill that her treatment would require. Survival in the real world this time around would perhaps be just as hard as her last time in Rukongai, even with the semblance of a welfare system.

He drove back to the hospital, his flamboyant mood deflating considerably. The sight of her student ID photo would not leave his mind, painfully aware that even though she looked like she always did, a fifteen year old girl, his face reflected by the laminated card was that of a thirty year old man. Twice her age and almost old enough to be her father, the past fifteen years were suddenly put into perspective. Time had not stopped since her death, it was mere he who had stopped and was lagged behind.

Upon his arrival back to the hospital, Rukia was still sleeping in her bed and in stable condition. The nurse informed him of the various tests that they had done while he was away and handed him the chart. Ichigo heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that unlike the other girls that had been brought in, Rukia only had a routine heart attack attributed to a more or less common congenital defect of the atrio-ventricular valve in the left chamber. He only supposed that the excess movement from the loading bento incident had aggravated the condition and caused the episode, which made his heart sink just how easy it was for her to have a heart attack working a job like that. If he had not been there at that moment, she would have slipped past yet another time without him even knowing.

With that thought in mind, he found a nurse sitting at the administrations table and asked for Kuchiki Rukia's files. In the "Legal Guardian" box, he put down "Kurosaki Ichigo" with a stately tap of the paper at the end.

* * *

Days later, when Rukia moved into Ichigo's apartment as his cousin (twice removed), a man stood before the evicted sign taped on her apartment door and cocked a curious eyebrow.


	3. Chapter 3

As Shirayuki flew past the gusts of wind that held countless snowflakes hostage and made her way toward the highest peak, her stomach could not help but churn. Fear was not exactly the right word, as hundreds have set out before her to face the same task and met the exact same end. She knew what the outcome would be before she even was sent, but the prospect of finally seeing _him_ unsettled something deep within her. The taboo that he carried was so ingrained in the psyche of her kind that he had become more of an idea of fear rather than a tangible enemy. Her people, who had no doubts about the governing of life and death from their ancient association with Soul Society, had feared the one thing that no one was able to tell about while alive or dead, which was the nameless being that was sealed in the highest peak of Hakuyama for millennia past.

It seemed that the legend had stayed the same for just as long, having become such a staple of life that no one remembers it until another member of the clan is sent into the mountains and never heard from again. The shadow is such a part of the backdrop of life that really no one dares to venture a guess as to what it would be like to finally be rid of him, the king of hollows.

Shirayuki, the girl who the star said would bring the first spring to their forever frost laden kingdom, was on her way to do exactly that.

* * *

"Hey Yuzu- Wait, don't get Dad, I'm just calling to ask you something. Ummm, what do kids need to eat at breakfast? I mean, I know there's rice and fish, but how do you cook them?"

As soon as his sister began to give out a rapid stream of information that he had no way of deciphering, Ichigo rubbed his forehead and sighed. _There goes my lunch break_. From the technicalities of buying a good rice cooker to the amount of oil needed to sear bonito, Ichigo fought to stay conscious and wrote whatever he could catch on a sheet of paper beside him. Raising a kid was going to be much harder than he had thought in the moment of hazy that made him sign his name as Rukia's legal guardian.

Even though she had begun to live him since more than a week ago, he had not gotten any closer to figuring out who she was really. Adding to his unease as a thirty year old man in front of a fifteen year old girl and timidity to even appear before her, Rukia lived by the rhythm of an assassin and left not a single unoccupied moment outside of sleeping, eating and going to school. Ichigo even wondered if he had brought any change into her life other than taking the problem of bills off of her hands and having someone for the teacher to call if she had gotten into any trouble at school. It was not as if any did come, as Rukia appeared invisible to anyone other than himself, with no friends or relatives that called on her.

Thankfully, there was a pause in the appearance of unconscious girls these days and gave him the timely leisure to get use to the new addition to his originally uncomplicated single life. At this very moment, cardboard boxes lay around the apartment with rampant heaps of bubble wrap from the sheer number of appliances he had acquired. It was not as though he had lived a frugal life before, but he had just not seen the needs for things like a stove, as he had always eaten at the hospital cafeteria, or a washing machine, as how many changes of cloths did a single man have anyways? But with her arrival, he began to see the use in almost everything that comes his way, thinking "she could use this" or "she would need that".

Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder and jumped at Matsuka's smiling face so close to his asking him if he would like to go drinking with them at the end of his shift. Ichigo refused out of reflex and by chance saw the clock that said it was half past four, surprised that his shift had ended so much earlier than usual.

"Hey Matsuka!" He yelled at the man who was just about to turn away, "do you know what time high schools end?" It had occurred to him that he had no idea as to when schools end these days, as he was having a hard time remembering back to when he was in high school.

"Today's Monday, so around five, I'd guess?" Matsuka's eyebrow corked up behind his glasses with a sly smile, "I didn't know that was the kind of girls you liked, Kurosaki."

Ichigo had not much care for the remark as he had seen the countless high school girls in their sailor uniforms who had waited for Matsuka outside the hospital, instead only occupied with the thought that if he left now he would still be able to catch Rukia at the school. She had always taken the bus home on previous days and Ichigo thought with a small leap of his heart that he may find the chance to spend some time with her. Bidding a quick farewell to his colleagues in the room, Ichigo grabbed his jacket and proceeded down to the parking lot in a hurry.

Weaving through the already stagnant traffic of the pre-5 PM rush, Ichigo fought hard not to reach toward the packs of cigarettes that lay in the cup holder and light one to chase away the fatigue that gripped his shoulders since the surgery this morning. He had tried hard to not smoke wherever Rukia would find herself, as on the first morning that he drove her to school she had asked to open the window with an imperceptible wrinkle of her nose. He really did not want her to think of him as a smoky smelling mid-aged man that took her in with unclear motives in mind.

It was ten past five when Ichigo arrived at the school's gates and immediately caught the sight of her back, looking down the street at some unknown destination. The flow of students out of the front gate was thin and the street was rather empty. He drove slowly up to her and rolled down the window to catch her attention. When she jumped at his voice, he did not know if he should be satisfied by the reaction that he was finally able to get out of her or annoyed at the attention that she was giving to the unknown object that she was staring at.

"My shift ended early today…" Ichigo's throat had suddenly gone dry as she was looking intently at his face for his next words, "do you want to go to the supermarket to pick out the things you want for dinner?"

Her eyes shifted down the street again but nodded much to Ichigo's relief. When she got into the car, Ichigo took the care to roll down the window just a bit to prevent another incident like this morning's to happen. With a start, he realized how much he needed her approval in things.

* * *

When Rukia stepped out of the school's front gates that day, she could tell that Gin was near. It was that feeling of a snake slithering around her neck and suffocating her with a deliciously slow relish. She turned around to see his forever smiling face and asked "what do you want?"

"My my, Rukia-chan, that's no way to speak to dear old Gin is it? Who by the way is your _su-pe-ri-or?_" His smile tinged every word dangerously and when he dragged his last word out with every syllable, Rukia could not help but feel that he had dragged every bit of oxygen out of the air also. But she fought hard to maintain her composure, staring him intently back into those seemingly closed eyes. She did not like an opponent whose eyes she cannot see. "So I see that you have moved recently, where oh where can a penniless little girl go?"

Rukia could feel her own pupils contract in fear and suspicion. She blinked hard and tried to think of an excuse to tell Gin, but it was no use, they would check up everything she said and she would have to face the consequences of lying. Just then, she could hear another one of his sickening chuckles:

"As long as you complete the tasks that are assigned to you," he sneered "it hardly matters where you live. You can never run away from us, you know that Rukia-chan."

With that, he walked away from her with a wave and leaving her staring at his fading figure. Of course she knew she never could escape, that was the only thing that she always knew. She had no reasons to run anyways, as where else would she go? Carrying out tasks given to her always in a folded slip of paper was the entirety of her existence. Rukia sighed to herself that the short period of peace that she was just beginning to become accustomed to would end very soon. With all of this running through her head, she was completely unaware of the approaching car and thus had reason to jump when she heard Ichigo's voice pop up beside her. He never came to pick her up from school because his shifts always ran well into the night, she thought with a panic, hoping that he had not seen the exchange between her and Gin. But when she saw the man's face, a little shy from her direct gaze at him, she inwardly smiled a little and thought that she had nothing to worry about.

Hearing his idea of them going to the supermarket together, Rukia suddenly found herself warming up the idea of such simple activities that she never had the need to participate in before. And plus, the man's fridge was suspiciously empty of anything edible also. So with the thought that she would enjoy this period of easy living as much as she could before she was forced to leave again, Rukia nodded, but not before she looked down the street again to make sure that Gin was nowhere in sight.

On the way to the supermarket, Rukia allowed herself to sit back in the seat and enjoy the slight breeze let through the slightly rolled down windows and thought gratefully that the cigarette smells had dissipated somewhat. She turned to look at the profile of the man driving, feeling like she was on the verge of recognizing it but something like a thin veil of time between them stopped her. But she decided she was satisfied with what she saw, he was clean shaven and his shirt, although somewhat dishevelled from work, was honest enough. He did not attempt anything inappropriate in the past days, nor gave her any reason to distrust, so Rukia decided also that she liked being with him, safe at the least.

Though when they stepped into the supermarket, Rukia changed her mind as she endured the bizarre looks from the housewives who were shopping for dinner. Rukia knew immediately how strange their situation looked, as Ichigo was too young to be her father and too old to her brother, so they must have concluded that she was a high school girlfriend kept by Ichigo. She shook her head and hoped that would not become a reality anytime soon.

Shopping with Ichigo proved to be interesting at best, since Ichigo knew nothing about groceries as a single man and Rukia was only accustomed to buying the bare necessities for life due to her meagre salary, so neither of them knew what ingredients were needed for a meal. So Ichigo ended up taking out the sheet of paper dictated by Yuzu and filled the cart with every item on there. Seeing his intent face in reading the labels on each box to make sure that he had gotten the right one and asking her if it would alright if they buy bonito for dinner, Rukia smiled an unaccustomed smile. The curve of her lips widened when she saw the startled look of Ichigo's face at the sight of her smile.

At the end of their tour, Rukia noticed the mounts of green as they passed the vegetable section and gave Ichigo's sleeve a slight tug, asking if they could buy some cucumbers. Ichigo seemed rather surprised by her explanation that she never could buy them because they were too expensive. But nonetheless, he immediately went to work to fill a bag with them. Looking at the man carefully picking out cucumbers, examining them each with a physician's scrutiny that they were free from blemishes, for the first time Rukia wished that she could stay with him for just a bit longer.

* * *

At the mouth of the cave, Zangetsu waited wearily for the presence that he could feel rapidly closing in. _Another one, huh…_ He thought, though a little alarmed by the sight of the snow outside of his cave. They all told him that something was going to be different from today on, that his millennia long wait was coming to an end.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Yet another chapter^^

I try to make the chapters longer now, and I really like the new sort of suspense fiction that I'm writing. Sadly, this isn't as popular as I had wish it would be. That hardly matters, as long as you enjoy the story.

Also, as a note, _sunomono_ is a type of Japanese cucumber salad. Rukia's favourite foods are cucumbers and rice dumplings, I remember reading in the character book. So, it's cute that Ichigo would make it for her ne?

Please enjoy.

* * *

Zangetsu cocked a curious brow at the sight of the girl standing at the mouth of his cave. Having lived so long, he had thought it unlikely that he could be surprised by anything. But at the very least, he did not expect them to send a girl.

He sat back against a boulder and studied the girl before him. She seemed too young to have had any children yet, as only the men whose sons had become old enough to take over the clan were sent to kill him. It was a good thing that they did, as none had ever returned to the village below from his cave.

"Aren't you a bit young to be here?" He asked with a sneer, hating to have his peace stolen.

"Are you the one? The hollow king?" She asked back rather fearlessly, though Zangetsu could see the small fists that bunched up inside her sleeves. Still a child, he had a thought.

"If that's what you call me, then yes"

"I'm here to tell you that you will never kill my father."

"And why is that?"

"Because I will kill you before then."

Zangetsu threw his head back with a laugh, feeling that he could no long hold it in. So many years, finally, an interesting one.

"How do you propose to do that exactly? Challenge what your people have known for as long as they have existed?"

Blood rose to her pale face as she fought to steady her stare at him, thinking rapidly for a smarting comeback. But she had given no thought as to how she would save her father from the same fate as countless ones of her people before him. She only knew that it was time that someone did.

"There will be another two years before my brother comes of age to succeed my father as head of the family, so I will train until then, until I'm strong enough to kill you."

"With who? The powers of your clan, I know it all from having fought so many of your forbearers, nothing they teach you will be of any use."

"Then you will teach me."

Zangetsu now could see that it would not be an ordinary day, not at all.

"I might kill, deliberately or carelessly."

"If I don't fight you, how would I know how strong I need to be."

Impeccable reasoning, if a little reckless. Zangetsu's eyes narrowed at the prospect of the contact. His solitude, which was too long for time to even measure, was coming to an end.

"Very well. If you interrupt my sleep, however…"

* * *

When Rukia woke up, she shot up from bed realizing that it was close to high noon. Though she immediately doubled over with the sharp pain in her head, which along with the blinding sunlight streaming through the window made her tear. It was always so after an assignment, and she right now was feeling the after affects of last night's. Hissing with pain, Rukia got out of her bed and dragged herself into the kitchen to find a glass of water. Her body was just not accustomed to the process after even a week's repose. Cursing Gin, she found a note on the makeshift dinner table, written in Ichigo's clean handwriting.

_I have some matter to take care of at the hospital, and I won't be home until pretty late in the afternoon. I left some food (sunomono) in the refrigerator and you can eat it with last night's leftovers. _

_Ichigo, 7:00am_

Gulping down an aspirin as the microwave beside her hummed, Rukia wondered what was happening to her. Living with a strange man's house, sleeping in his bed, and letting him cook for her, the old Rukia would never have stood for that. She admitted though that she was content living with him. It was not just the fact that she did not need to see a single hydro or tuition bill ever since she had moved in, but in their mutual ignorance of each other's pasts, she felt safe with him, a certain affinity with another wandering soul in the world.

Even though she knew that he was not her cousin, something about his use of the parenthesis told her that he was family in a way.

* * *

Ichigo felt that he had physically hit the metaphorical dead end in front of him. After the brief pause in the appearance of victims, a new one was just found early in the morning. He was called to the hospital at six this morning and all morning long he endured the more than frequent run of his thoughts back to the apartment wondering how Rukia was doing. She seemed so exhausted in the morning, so pale that he for a moment thought that she was dead. He wrote it off as a girl who was finally allowed some freedom to sleep in on Saturdays.

And so his thoughts escaped him again just like that.

But it also was no exaggeration when he felt like he was going to burst an artery from how tensely he sat in his chair trying to find a diagnosis. At noon, he finally decided to give his old friend a call back in Karakura.

"Ishida," he said when he heard a click on the other end, "I need your help with something."

"Why else would you ever call." Nonetheless, the voice sounded amused.

Ichigo chuckled too, "how was the wedding?'

"Orihime was happy, save for the absence of a particular dandelion top. No where near a Mrs. Kurosaki then, I'd guess?"

"No by a few light years." There was a grain of truth in that, "have you been keeping your eyes on the news lately? About those girls."

"They say it was heat stroke, but that can't be the case, can it? What do you know?"

"I…think they are hollow related. When they were brought in, I could feel that there was something like reiatsu on them. If it had lasted this long, it must mean that the shinigami stationed there has no idea."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, "I thought you decided to put all that behind you. After she-"

"I found her a week ago. She's living with me now."

"What! Kurosaki! You saw it for yourself all those years ago, Rukia's dead. She's a shinigami, she can't even be reincarnated. Don't be reckless, it could have just been some girl who looks like her-"

Ichigo sighed, he knew that this would happen. How could he explain to Ishida that he somehow _knew_ that it was her, and that feeling would linger even if she had told him that she was not Rukia.

"Why don't you come by? We need another consult at the hospital anyway, then you can come by and see her for yourself."

* * *

When Ichigo opened the apartment door with Ishida behind him, both men's jaws dropped, though for wholly different reasons. Ishida of course was by the girl before him who was wiping the floor and Ichigo was more than surprised by the fact that his floor is beige rather than tan as he had always thought. Once Ichigo had realized the fact that Rukia had cleaned the apartment to impeccable cleanliness, he was secretly glad that today was the day that he had brought Ishida. Introducing the man beside him, Ichigo settled the plastic bags in his hands onto the table.

"This is Ishida Uryuu, an old friend of mine from back home. He's a doctor too, he came today to help me on the cases." Ichigo waved casually to the other man, Rukia stood up and gave him a sheepish greeting, but was unnerved by the man's gaze on her face with a mixture of horror and fascination. Noticing the strange atmosphere of the room, Ichigo cleared his throat and distributed the convenient store bentos to everyone, apologizing that he had no time to cook. Ishida looked to Ichigo with fascination as he never had thought that a mere girl could bring such change to the man that he had known for so long. Despite the seemingly rigid air around them, he could tell that this Rukia, like the last one, quieted Ichigo's spirit. To tame him, so to say, into someone who must have gone to great lengths to switch his shifts to run home to eat dinner with her, was a truly great feat. On one hand, Ishida felt some satisfaction seeing him rescued from the depth of his desolation after Rukia had died, but on the other hand, he was genuinely worried about what would happened if she was not her. He admitted that there was the uncanny resemblance, but the air around her was too different, something that he could not tell and Ichigo could not care. Orihime would be happy to see this, he thought, who was so guilty about finding happiness.

Amidst awkward inquiries, the three strangers ate in silence.

Just as Ichigo was disposing the empty boxes into the garbage, Rukia crept up behind him and asked him if he would like to take a bath first, seeing that she was filling up the tub. Ishida suppressed a chuckle when Ichigo seemed genuinely startled by this act of kindness, who stammered a no and turned back to the sink with a raging heart. Waiting until Rukia had left the kitchen, Ishida slapped a hand on his shoulder and finally let out the laugh.

"Never thought I'd see the day, Kurosaki. By the way, got any beer?"

When the two men walked onto the balcony with their beer and cigarettes, the scene before Ichigo shook him to the depth of his soul. A midsummer dusk was spread out in the sky before him, enveloping him with a wonderfully cool breeze. The setting sun had tainted the sky into a warm orange, which deepened into a fearfully brilliant violet toward the horizon. Everything, even the clouds, was thrown into shadows, ending a loud summer's day with an intimate air. Ichigo could hear the murmur of the plants below him, who were falling into sleep in quiet memory of the sun's brilliance during the day. The scene before him was so breathtakingly grand that he feared that he would be lost in it, lost in the joy of being in a world where Rukia exist also.

"You know, I couldn't believe it also when I saw her for the first time. Even though I told myself it couldn't have been her, I couldn't help myself from going to the convenience store where she worked day after day to catch a glimpse of her." While looking at the translucent moon that was hanging in the western sky, Ichigo mused "but I don't think I have the strength now to let her go even if she's not Rukia."

"What was Rukia to you, back then?"

"What was she? Companion, comrade…We were more than friends, at least she was more than a friend to me. But I was such a dishonest kid back then, that I was so afraid that if I cleared the air between us that she would go somewhere far away. I wanted her to love me, but I needed her even more as a shinigami, as a person. Without her to punch some sense in me, I lost all will to fight. To protect my family, Inoue, Chad, you" Ichigo ignored the glare from the man beside him, "I need her to be by my side. I could beat Kuchiki Byakuya, I could fight Kenpachi, but I had no one to save me from myself, the little boy who still cried over his mother's death."

Ishida could only hear in awe the man's blatant confession, who could only articulate his feelings into words after so many years. But the more stirred he was by Ichigo's words, the more worried he grew.

"What would she be to you now?" Ishida asked as he leaned back against the balcony's railings, "you are fifteen years older, don't forget that. Would you be a father, a brother, a guardian, or a lover to her? How long would you be able to control yourself? She still looks the same and I know it would be easy to forget the years that separated you two. For all you know, she could just be a normal girl who still hasn't gone on her first date yet, and for you to take it all away from her just because she has a face like another girl's?"

Ichigo's grip on the railings tightened as Ishida rattled off one question after another, each hitting him with a vile accuracy. He had thought about all of it! As much as he would like to ignore them, he sooner or later will have to face them, but he would rather bury his head in the sand until that day comes.

"It's easy for you to give me all the rationalizations, but do you know how much of a divine grace I thought it was when she collapsed in my arms? I still dream of her disappearing into spirit particles that night, and I would wake up uncertain which world I really belong in. Did she really die and come back or did she come back and die again? If I had thought it was the latter for a second, I would lose the will to get up again. I won't touch her, if that's all I need to do to stay by her, where I can see her."

Against the darkening sky, Ichigo could see Ishida's burning cigarette, its end flashing red each time he inhaled. The red dot appeared with such regularity that Ichigo was doubtful whether he had heard a single enraged word he had said. After a while, Ishida asked calmly:

"Have you been waiting for her all these years? Have you ever touched a woman?"

Ichigo's face flushed deep crimson at the notion. The thought of being with another woman, anyone other than her, was never present in his mind.

"You can go on waiting, I know, but can she? She still has to grow up, to meet someone and to get married. What are you going to be then? A father that gives her away on her wedding day, or are you going to selfishly chain her by your side to keep your mind at ease?"

Ichigo was startled into the series of realizations, who had never thought about the future. He had thought that reality would remain stagnant, allow the two of them some respite.

"Let's stop this." Ichigo murmured quietly, "why don't you go find a hotel? We have to go to the hospital tomorrow for you to look over the cases."

"You're right," Ishida looked down at feet as an attempt to diffuse the heavy air, "I'll meet you here tomorrow at 7:00am."

After seeing Ishida to the end of the corridor and locking the apartment door behind him, Ichigo let out a long breath and returned to the balcony. The moon was shining with all its might, so bright and sharp against the ink black sky. He leaned forward against the railing and lit a cigarette, feeling his nerves had calmed somewhat after several drags. Are woes of the present meant to be endured for the promise of a better future or to atone for past wrongs? Ichigo wondered. Was he being punished for not saying what he should have fifteen years ago?

He was so deep in thought that he had missed the figure coming up to him from behind. A small hand placed itself on the arm that was holding the cigarette to his mouth and Ichigo whipped his head around to see Rukia looking up at him, in a loose T-shirt that was his.

"You shouldn't smoke so much, you know." Her hand looked translucent under the moonlight, so white that it shone. Ichigo's nose was directly above her head, and he could smell the warm moisture on her skin from the bath and the cheap perfume of shampoo. She was standing too close, his body tensed up at the thought. "At the convenient store, they were talking about an orange haired man who bought a pack of cigarettes everyday. I… It's not just that I don't like the smell, but you will get sick."

Something risked brimming over in Ichigo's heart, who realized with a start that she was concerned about him. He immediately snubbed out the cigarette and told her to get inside or she would catch a cold, which he regretted saying as it made him sound much more mature than he really was. Rukia nodded and went back inside the apartment, but not before saying:

"Thank you for the sunomono."

* * *

With a grunt, Shirayuki was sent across the cave and thrown against a boulder. Zangetsu could tell that she took the last hit quite hard, but she only stood up and dusted her robes, asking to try once more. He sighed and said:

"No, I won't fight when I'm hungry." He said, sneaking a glance of the cold sweat that was streaming down her brow. She stared at him with a sheer disbelief and anger, but sheathed her sword and with a gust disappeared into the blizzard beyond the cave's opening. Zangetsu found himself worried if she should be making that trip with all her wounds. After a while, he had thought that she had returned home for the day, but then a white figure emerged into the cave carrying a steaming wooden case.

He sat on his habitual boulder and watched her laying out three dishes onto a flat rock and moved to fill a bowl with rice. When she looked up, Shirayuki saw him looking at her with an expression that made her uneasy. It was too…inquisitive.

"What are you looking at me for?"

"I was just wondering if you put poison in the food."

"I'll remember that for next time."

Despite her cool countenance, Shirayuki was growing uncomfortable while eating opposite the hollow. He seemed to be enjoying his food, with a light-hearted expression that was a far cry from when he threw her across the cave against a boulder. She had a dream last night, in which she saw her sword driven through him with a sickening wet sound and her hand felt warm with blood. Her dreams often foretold something about the future, but Shirayuki was having a hard time imagining the day when she would finally kill the hollow before him. For the time being, he was much too strong.

Seeing that Zangetsu had finished his bowl, she stood up and drew her sword.

"Can we continue?"


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Sorry for the long pause between this chapter and the last. Life was catching up to me.

Please enjoy this chapter and provide me your feedback.

* * *

He wondered why he took her in, before knowing whether she really was his Rukia. Was it just to distance himself from all the people that he could not protect? Helping her does not bring Renji back from death, nor would it mend Byakuya's soul. No matter how many people he could save by his hand, it would not erase the number of people that he had failed to.

As the soft animals that we are, we live day to day to harden the shell on our backs that barely shelter us from sharp instruments of life. Some people live their entire life without trouble or illness, and others die at a young age just because they were caught at the wrong place in the wrong time. We never know when horrors of life would catch us and the thought that it will inevitable cripples us, so we can only live day to day in ignorance of the future. If he was told when he was six years old that his mother would die because of him, that he would meet her and become a shinigami, that he would go to everything to save the her and the world, and only to have her die to meet a girl child fifteen years later, the realization of such a magnitude would be incomprehensible and crushing. We live like the lowliest of worms, powerless before the turning of the giant machinery of life, but we keep on living as if at birth we were shoved into the world and have been riding on its momentum ever since. It is unimaginable to stop living, so the only thing that we can do is to make living a little easier to bear.

Ichigo had thought so as he lay awake in the morning, seeing from the corner of his eye the brilliant summer light streaming through the pale curtains. The Sunday morning was still quiet, and he was caught off guard by the internal workings of his mind that he had ignored for so long. Ishida was right, making Ichigo wonder why he was doing it all. He was long past the hormonal adolescent years that his love for Rukia never aroused anything sexual in him, having long been reduced to a dull rage as he was never given the chance to give out the love that he had nurtured for so long. It angered him that she was taken away before she could see his outstretched hand, that their story was left forever without an ending. This time around, he just wanted to turn the last page.

* * *

When Ishida arrived that morning he found Ichigo running around in his apartment because Rukia had spiked a fever. While wringing a cold towel, the orange haired man could be heard mumbling something about should have never let her come on to the balcony straight out of a bath. Amused by Ichigo's panic despite the fact that he was a doctor, Ishida proposed to exam Rukia to allow the other man a moment of rest.

Walking into the bedroom that Rukia was occupying, Ishida felt a distinctive churn in his stomach. This was the first time that he was able to study her so closely, and the sight of Kuchiki Rukia before him was just the least bit unnerving. Gingerly touching her forehead, it was clear that she was burning up. But other than that, her breathing was normal and it seemed like no more than a common cold. The feel of her skin and body heat felt real enough on his palm, and it had occurred to him that he knew next to nothing about the difference between a real human body and a gigai. When Ichigo dashed in with the towel, Ishida said:

"I think we should take her to the hospital and give her a complete check up. You don't even know if she is human or in a gigai. Don't you think that you owe yourself at least that much of an explanation?"

Ichigo pretended to be busy with his hands as he pondered the suggestion. Logically, as Ishida's suggestions always were, it would give him at least some hint as to where she came from and who she was. But it was like a patient told to take an HIV test, he wondered if he really would like to know the truth. To say if she had turned out to be a human girl with Rukia's face and name, he would inconsolable and she would be thrown back into the world having to fend for herself again. On the other hand, if they find out that she really was in a gigai and was Kuchiki Rukia some point in the past, not only would he be obligated to find out what had transpired between her death and now, he could lose her in the end all the same. Plus, the piece of news would be too much for his heart to bear, for he would probably drink himself blind at the prospect of having her returned to him as a child that he needed to father more than love as a man. Just as he had thought this morning, ambiguity after all was the best choice.

So he shook his head and refused the suggestion, saying that she would be fine with a day of rest. Ishida was keenly aware that Ichigo had evaded his question, but decided against saying anything.

* * *

"It's like someone stuck their hand into these girls' chests and grasped their hearts…"

Ishida said to Ichigo while both were looking at the CT cans of the victims. Since this morning, the two men had been reviewing the files that were piled on the table before them. There actually weren't much information as all the girls had the same symptoms and none of them had any memory of the incidents.

"No human being can inflict this kind of injuries. But I can't think of anyone who would pry upon humans without any spiritual power, I mean if a hollow had done this, the shinigami stationed here must have noticed. What if…"

"Aizen you mean?" It took Ichigo a while to realize who he was alluding to, "but I don't see how he can have the motivation or the means, now that the Hogyoku's destroyed and his forces reduced to almost nothing fifteen years back."

Ishida nodded and agreed that it was a far stretch, and so the pair fell silent at the thought, uncomfortable with the feeling as if they were groping in the dark, vulnerable to an unknown enemy. While looking at the files lined up in a single row before them, Ishida suddenly said:

"Hey Kurosaki, don't they look somewhat alike? I mean, they all have one common trait or the other. For example, Sakaguchi Ayako and Yamada Tomoko both had black hair, Yamamoto Maya doesn't but her and Sakaguchi both have violet eyes. They all have the same statue and general features."

"You mean this could be a targeted attack?"

"Like whoever did this was looking for something…"

"Is Urahara's shop still there?"

Ichigo suddenly asked.

"I think so, why?"

"He should have some news from the Soul Society, I mean, they must've been aware of this."

"I'll pay him a visit when I get back."

"Can't you call him?"

"I don't want to involve Orihime." Ishida said gravely, the air in the room suddenly congealed.

Ichigo chuckled at what he must have meant:

"Good to know that you won't make the same mistake I did." Standing up from the chair, he said "how about a drink before you leave?"

* * *

In the delirium of the fever, Rukia could hear a fairy's song from far away. The fragile melody only comes when she was stepping through sleep's door, the only time when snow begins to fall in a place deep within her soul. The nymph that she could barely see shrouded in white was calling to someone, hoping against hope that her flittering notes could fly through the ice and snow and reach the one that she had waited for a long time.

For several days now, she inches closer to her every night, each time seeing a little more of her figure and face. Rukia felt such a sweet ache inside her heart at the sight of her, wanting to take the delicate girl in her arms and call out her name, telling her that she did not have to be lonely anymore. But the name never came, she could feel it struggling to burst out of her throat, but each time she opened her mouth to say it, she would wake up to find herself in Ichigo's bedroom.

Today was no different. Ever since her eyes flew open Rukia had been staring up at the ceiling trying to recall a fragment of the dream. But only a feeling lingered, a yearning that was cooled by the passage of time into a dull knot in her stomach. She sat up and the towel on her forehead fell onto her lap, giving her a start. Her mind was still cloudy from the fever, but she took from her pajamas damp with sweat and the darkening sky outside that it was all over. She crawled out of bed and proceeded to the bathroom to take a shower.

Afterwards, when she stood in front of the steam covered mirror to get dressed, she found herself studying her own exposed body with a new awareness. When she was living by herself, it had never occurred to her to venture a guess as to what she looked like to other people. No one was going to take notice of her anyways, so she only needed to make sure that she was clean enough to not be scorned by teachers. But now, examining her small but present breasts and the rounded protrusion of her hips, she wondered about the Rukia in Ichigo's eyes. Did see her as a subject of his pity or as a woman? It also became clear to her that she did not much prefer the former, but she soon shook the thought out of her head and exited the bathroom with a plume of steam behind her. She told herself that she should not become too comfortable, as Gin's orders would come soon.

Just as she was drying her hair with a towel, there was a knock on the door. Opening it, she found an exasperated looking Ishida supporting a barely coherent Ichigo on his shoulders.

"Sorry to bother you like this, Kuchiki-san, but Kurosaki had a few too many…"

Rukia was startled by the sight of Ichigo, as the flushed and disjointed man before her seemed like such a departure from his usual composed state. Directing Ishida to the bedroom, she helped him throw the spongy figure down on the bed and listened to his explanation that Ichigo drank far past his limit at the bar. She thought it strange that Ishida felt the need to explain to her anything that Ichigo did. After he had left with another apology, she went to the kitchen to pour a glass of water and wetted a cold towel. The bedroom was bright from the full moon that could be seen from the open window, so she had no trouble finding her way to the bed where she hoisted the man up to take a drink of water and laid him down again with the towel on his forehead. Rukia also took the care to loosen the buttons near his collar so that the flush on his face could fade a little.

Her fingers shook at the heat that was radiating off of his body, her stomach churning at the intimacy of her act. Slowly, with each button that came undone, the uneven planes of his chest became exposed to her view. Her breath caught at the sight of the scars of all shapes and sizes that littered across his skin, her mind boggled as her fingers ran across them. She could not imagine where he could have gotten these, realizing how much of his past that she did not know. The sensation on her finger tips was mesmerizing, she could feel an unknown swell in her heart, a sort of affection for them. Rukia snuck a glance at his face to make sure that he would not catch her in the act, and thought for the first time that he was a good looking man. There was a sweet nostalgia as she tracing the lines from his knotted brow to the tall bridge of his nose and finally to the lines of his thin lips. Under the moonlight, she could hear the fairy's song again.

Suddenly, she felt a hand cover hers on Ichigo's chest. His eyes were half closed in a drunken haze, but they were fixed on her with a pained tenderness that made her heart race audibly in her ear. Just as she was about to retract her hand, his hold tightened.

"Don't go, Rukia, you finally came back, please don't go."

Before she could react or many anything of this peculiar situation, she felt a pull that landed her in an abnormally hot embrace. It was an unfamiliar place to be, in his arms, but not an uncomfortable one. Despite the fact that the sudden movement took her by surprise, her body was reluctant to struggle. He then turned so that both of them were on their sides with his face buried between her neck and shoulder. When hot droplets rolled down her neck, Rukia's arms unconsciously wound around his back and her left hand came to be in his matted hair, pressing him closer. It had all happened as simply as that.

"Mom died, I don't want to be alone anymore."

He clung onto her like a drowning man onto the last straw, murmuring desperate words.

"I can't tell which one is a dream and which one is reality. Before I know it, I would be back there, where it was raining and I was left all alone."

A heavy weight was pressing on her chest as she listened, Of course she had no idea what he was talking about, but somehow she knew that it did not matter as she held onto the anguished man. Against her stomach, she could feel the wild racing of his heart. Oddly, it put her at ease as she knew that he was sincere, as every word was spoken as painstakingly as it sounded. Does the situation not strike you as the least bit strange, she asked herself. But it had suddenly occurred to her that as long as he was by her side, everything would be alright. The brilliance of that realization dazzled her, scaring her.

Feeling Ichigo's even breath on her neck, she could hear sleep harkening her. Just as she was about to fall into the warm darkness, she suddenly remember her name.

_Shirayuki_.

* * *

"Are you going to the mountains again?"

Her father demanded as Shirayuki was getting ready to leave the gate. She could see the obvious displeasure in his yes.

"Yes."

His eyes narrowed at the answer that made no effort to disguise her intent. He had noticed her leaping improvements in training ever since she had begun to visit the hollow, but he could not afford for him to sway Shirayuki's belief in her people's age long purpose.

"You can train with him, but don't forget your forbearers who had died because of him. The hollow king is devious, don't let him change what you know is true."

Shirayuki listened as she studied her father's face, realizing with a start just how much he had aged. Wrinkles lined his face and the hairs at his temples were already speckled with white. The thought had suddenly her that because of the hollow, her father will have to die in a place where the ice never melts and the winds never stop.

* * *

The sounds of swords clashing rang throughout the cave with an alarming violence.

Zangetsu was surprised that the usually composed Shirayuki had shed all semblance of calm and was on the verge of tears as she savagely advanced on him. Even though her sword flashed before him with startlingly speed and force, she was erratic in her movements and left obvious gaps for him to exploit. Finally, bored with the meaningless exchange, he easily took a step to her left and rested his sword on her pulse. From behind a few strands of stray hair, her eyes looked upon him with such venom that he could not help but shudder.

"Have you forgotten everything that I have taught you?" It was a thinly veiled question of concern, the only way he knew how.

"Why do you have to kill them all?" There was a quiver in her voice, a rare display of weakness.

Zangetsu sighed and released her, he himself walking across the cave to sit down on a boulder. Looking up, he found her eyes and said:

"I never killed anyone."

"But-"

"They killed themselves, after I had defeated them. They couldn't face the shame of bringing the news back to the people down below. If nothing else, they were proud men."

Shirayuki frowned, unsure if she should believe such an outrageous statement. The horrors of the hollow king and the inevitable end of men who sought to kill him were ingrained in the very psyche of her people. To be told otherwise, the world seemed to have lost its very foundation.

"Then why do they want to kill you?"

"People don't like what they don't know, what they can't control." He was amused that it had taken this long for someone to ask that one simple question.

"Then can't you leave? Go somewhere so all of this can come to an end?"

"I was told a long time ago to wait for something, and here is where I have to wait for it. So before it comes, I can't let you kill me, little girl."

Just as the last word left his mouth, he had to put up his sword to intercept Shirayuki's blow.

"My name is Shirayuki." She spat out.

"Zangetsu," he smiled. "As you wish."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Sorry for the late update ^^;;

Since the last update, I've been busy with my final exams and university entrance. Now that the dust has settled, I can finally come back to write.

Though I have to say, it took me a while to muster up some semblance of romantic illusion when mine was going horribly. Though I really hope you guys can enjoy this short chapter.

And I can smell the rust in my fingers after not writing for so long, so please don't flame ^^;;

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

Shirayuki's eyes flew open to find a chillingly bright moon outside of her window. Her heart was not quite yet steady from her dream, her hand feeling still warm from the blood that washed from Zangetsu down her sword. She brought her hand up to her face to bring some sense into her head, only to feel the moisture that streaked down her cheeks. Almost immediately her eyes felt sore, as if she had just cried. It was an unfamiliar sensation, since tears were a distant childhood memory. Why had she cried? The dream has been recurring every night now, but she could not derive the smallest shred of satisfaction from the prospect of completing her task.

Another gaze was resting on the same moon at this moment. For days now, he had been made to feel uneasy about the approaching day of summoning. He knew that it was coming soon, but what would he be called to do? He had waited for millennia in this cave for that one day, but when it finally comes, he was found listless. What would life be after that day? He would have no more purpose.

Would he die?

He hoped so.

* * *

At the break of dawn, when Rukia's eyes opened to the steel grey sky outside the window, fragments floated up her mind.

"I see, he never loved you." Rukia pondered, but questioned, "why, then, do you want me to remember? It might take another eternity for the bleeding to stop."

The girl shrouded in white smiled the saddest smile.

"Because I want you to remember that I did. That I loved Zangetsu."

Rukia blinked, unsure of the validity of the words. All that remained for certain was the air that seized her so that for a moment it was hard to breath. She had a hard time reconciling that feeling with tangible words, only describable as a sinking of her heart that made her seek the company of man beside her and only relieved when Ichigo's warm breath on her shoulder brought her attention to the man's sleeping face.

In the pale shadowy light that came through the window, she was able to distinguish the thinnest web of veins on his eyelids of an infantile whiteness and vulnerability. The dip of his brow, the sharp tip of his nose and the faint shadow casted by his lashes seemed breakable to her that moment. Not that she would have known, but the Little Prince of the asteroid B612 once looked upon his rose with the same sweetness, knowing that her thorns were nothing against the world. Rukia began to realize the man's existence with a tenderness, marveling at how such a fragile body could have held up this long. At the thought, her arm tunneled under his neck and cradled his head to her, bringing her lips involuntarily to brush across the fluttering lashes and tasting the sea.

_Were you a fish in the sea, only thrown out in a cruel whim of fate? Were you back home just now in those waters of salt?_ Rukia asked the man silently.

Rukia's fingers sank into Ichigo's hair and grazed her lips across his features, familiarizing herself with the topography. The soft heat of his skin calmed her heart, the solidity of his frame anchored her, validating her as a part of this world.

The only place that was left unexplored was his lips, where Rukia hesitated. She had seen the circumstances under which women had touched the lips of the men they were with, and questioned her right to do so. But something prompted her to allow at least her finger tips to run across them, which in turned prompted the opening of Ichigo's eyes.

There was the fraction of a second that Rukia could see the realization dawn in his mind, their proximity and the slightest pressure of her fingers on his lip. He watched her face, and she watched his. The sight doubled with a distant memory in Rukia's mind's eye, and found an unfamiliar soreness behind her eyes that resolved into hot droplets of liquid that brimmed over, and a name escaped her in a shudder of breath.

"Zangetsu."

Ichigo's eyes widened, and his heart began an audible race against his ribcage.

The incredible weight of her sadness and happiness made her body curl into a ball that was only straightened by his hands that gathered her into him, pressing the entire length of his body against the entirety of hers to assure her of his presence. She was crying from a bottomless well of sadness, a sadness so deep that they seemed to emanate from her bones, built into them eternities ago.

Somehow Ichigo felt himself too young before her, inadequate to understand why she was crying so hard. There, however, was a stir in his long stagnant heart that caught him off guard.

_Zangetsu, is that really you? How did she know your name?_

The man's expression was blurred through Rukia's teary vision, and her aching head from the sobs prevented her from processing what he was doing until his lips came so close to hers that for a moment they shared the same breath of air, flowing back and forth between them. But somehow, it was not to be, as the man clamped shut his lips as if by a display of iron will and sat up to reach for a box of tissues.

"Come on, you'll be late for school."

_That_ was what lay at the heart of the problem.

* * *

When Ichigo saw the three visitors waiting for him in the conference room that morning, he felt incredibly tired. Amongst Inoue, Ishida and Urahara, he was the one who had changed the most, but he too was the only one lagged behind by time. He could not live in denial anymore.

"Ah, Kurosaki-kun, it's been a while ne?" Urahara's smiling face always made him want to punch him.

"You have heard from Ishida, right?" Ichigo was in no mood for pleasantries.

The sly smile on Urahara's face faltered just the slightest. "When can I see her?"

"You can come by the apartment after I've picked her up from school." Ichigo was at first surprised that he did not want any proofs of her identity. But then it hit him that he did not like the idea that he was making a spectacle out of her.

As if a bothersome chore, he once again too the pains to lay out the stacks of patient files on the long table, and gave a run down of all that had happened up to date.

"For sure by now you two have thought about this as a targeted attack?" Urahara mused after browsing the rows of photographs.

"Yes, and we also have looked at the possibility of this being inflicted by hollows, but have you had any word from the resident shinigami in Karakura?" Ishida asked.

Urahara's eyes narrowed at the notion. "There hasn't been a replacement for the last one yet, who I've gotten wind was recalled by Seireitei for 'breaching protocol'. To be sure, I never thought Karuma was smart enough to do anything other than what he was told."

Both Ichigo and Ishida exchanged a glance.

"If no human could have afflicted such injuries, then the perpetrator was not looking for a mere human. There is hardly use in attacking mortals at random." Ichigo asserted.

"But none of these girls appeared to possess any spiritual powers." Ishida countered.

"Their physical similarities, what do you make of that," Urahara asked, not forgetting to add, "Kurosaki-kun?"

Ichigo felt a cold sweat was forcing itself from his forehead, and he knew that Urahara could see it too. That gleam of revelation that day when he saw the girl in the ER and subsequent suspicions came at him full force. The girls looked like Rukia, he had to admit to his reluctant mind. The dark hair, the violet eyes, the elfin stature, it all bore Rukia's shadows that would not allowed him to ignore. Catching his reaction, Ishida also saw the object that Urahara was looking at on the desk beside Ichigo's briefcase. It was a plastic laminated card that seemed like a student ID, the only one that Ichigo could have possessed. The flash of realization hit him also, whose mouth opened without a thought.

"Kurosaki!-"

All that came to Ichigo's head at the moment was to run, to hide from the inevitable conclusion. Confrontation, as hard as it was to believe, was by far not his forte. In fact, he despised them. His mother's death, his shinigami blood, world salvation, Rukia's death, he missed the age when he squatted on the river bank for days and believed that if he had waited long enough, his mother would come back.

And so he did.

"I, um, have to get this to Rukia at school. She would get scolded if her teacher found her without it." At that, he snatched up the ID card on the table and walked out the door.

* * *

Carrying her lunch back to the bustling classroom, Rukia had barely sat down before spotting a slip of white in her desk drawer.

She opened the sheet folded in half and found an address that was to be her next assignment.

As if the interruption this morning had instilled an unfamiliar annoyance in her, she for the first time sighed at the sight of the paper. She shoved somewhat roughly the carefully packed lunch into her desk drawer and left the classroom.

No one had noticed. Not that they ever did.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Okay, plot thickens.

It's summer, so lots of free time, but can't guarantee frequent updates. Up to a certain point, writing becomes an involuntary act, the characters suddenly come alive and act with a will of their own. The Ichigo/Rukia pair especially gives me quite a head ache.

With that, I also begin to realize that none of these characters are quite the forces of pure goodness and righteousness that I'd like to believe. So, the story quite likely will start to take a turn toward the darker side of human nature.

But again, it's a pleasure to write and hear your feedbacks.

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

_Not quite living the same love story._

* * *

When Rukia got into the car that afternoon, she could tell something was not right by Ichigo's face, whose jaw was tensely set. She shut the door and closed the two of them off in the unnerving silence inside the car.

"How was school?"

Even though the words were addressed to her, Ichigo's eyes were fixed directly ahead.

"It was fine." She answered slowly, pacing herself so that he would not hear the slight waver in her voice. It was no use, she could never say what he would not allow her to say or do what he would not let her do, not even dying.

"That's not what your teacher told me." Ichigo suddenly whipped around to face her. "What were you doing outside of school? Where were you?"

Rukia was taken aback by the edge in his voice, finding her back literally backed against the car door. She could only look at him with panic, not only because she could not find a suitable cover story, but also because she could feel her tongue suddenly seized, unable to utter a single sound. Once again she was reminded that she was merely a puppet in that man's hand, the strings that pulled her along creating a crude semblance of life.

"I came by this morning to drop off your ID card, and the office told me that you miss class at least once a week. I can't say for before I met you, but since you started living with me I thought you went to school every day. I-" Ichigo paused to reflect what he really wanted to say, "I don't know how to protect you this way."

It suddenly occurred to him how naked the words sounded, so he added with a cough, "I am responsible for you now."

Rukia's body could not move, so she could only look out the window in desperate wait for Ichigo to drop the subject. The sudden shake of the car a while later told her that he had started the engine and felt him turn onto the road, meaning that he must have taken her silence to be cold refusal. Why not, she thought, why not let him think that if she was simply a ward of his.

* * *

Ichigo felt very old and very young at the same time. With a dread he feared what Ishida said might be coming true before his very eyes, that he was becoming a tyrannical father of hers. But again, it was as if life had not prepared him well enough nor had given him time to learn enough tact to handle a situation of such.

He wished that he could look past his reason and trust her, since she was after all only a child. But the strip of paper that he had found underneath the desk in the apartment made him unsettled. On it was an address, one that he remembered on one of the files that he had just laid out that morning for Urahara and Ishida. Miyako Fujisawa was found there last week.

It was not hard telling himself that it was only a coincidence though, as the address pointed to a residential street that could easily have been where a classmate lived and invited her to visit. To further reassure himself, he pointed out in his mind that it was inconsistent with the body of evidence that Rukia might be involved in the attacks as it was becoming clear that she herself was the target.

At that thought, whatever was boiling to the brim inside of him subsided to make way for the familiar thought.

_I have to protect her._

* * *

"I'm afraid that we won't be able to count on Kurosaki much in the days to come." Ishida sighed as he sat with Urahara at a makeshift bar outside the train station.

"It wouldn't do any of us any good to force anything on him at the moment. But between the two of us, I've heard of some peculiar maneuvers on the Soul Society's part recently."

Ishida gave him a look that signaled him to continue.

"Central Room 46 has undergone a massive shuffle. The most senior members like Tsukinoe, Sawatari and Itoh were pulled out to make place for some new recruits. The official line is that there needs to be some new blood to prevent what had happened last time, but the rule changes and sealing off the central library were completely unnecessary. Communications between squads and stationing of shinigami in the real world now require permission of Central Room 46."

"Sounds like they are trying to keep people in the dark."

"Yep. With communications between squads are sealed off, mostly importantly that of Squad 4, as they keep an eye on the operations of Soul Society, there's very little I can know for sure."

"So Soul Society can have no idea of what's going on here in the real world?"

"Probably not, and maybe someone wants to keep it that way."

"How much could Aizen have recovered in these fifteen years?" Ishida suddenly asked, remembering the conversation between him and Ichigo.

Urahara shot him a stern glance, as if by just bringing up his name Ishida was disturbing the fragile peace bought with blood.

"I wouldn't know, maybe a lot, maybe not at all. There's not enough signs to point it toward him as of yet. It's too easy to blame an enemy we already know. The better question at the moment is who is this Rukia and where did she come from. That might better help to shine some light on the matter."

"We all saw her die all those years ago – "

"But her zanpakuto didn't disappear."

"It was shattered in two."

"That was merely its physical form, the fact that it didn't entirely disappear meant something was still there. Byakuya was the one who salvaged the pieces in the end."

"What's so special about her that you chose her to be Hougyoku's vessel back then?" Ishida asked the persistent question.

"No reason, it was an accident." Urahara downed whatever was left in his cup and stood up from the stool. "I'll try to keep Inoue-chan in the wraps."

And with that he walked away into the night.

It is not just the bad guys that have something to hide, you know.

* * *

A distant howl roused Shirayuki from her sleep. Opening her eyes to the not yet white horizon, she heard a bustle around the house that was alien to the heavy night before dawn. Bursting out of the door, she stopped a frantic servant and got the news that demons were trying to break the seal on Hakuyama.

A shiver caught her, realizing that the fated day was coming far too soon.

Tearing past all the people trying to stop her, Shirayuki barely had time to catch sight of her father in the courtyard, shrouded in gears that would prove to be insubstantial before Zangetsu. It was her father after all, who was able to pull her to a reluctant stop with one swipe of his arm.

"Where are you going."

"Stopping him."

"Are you out of your mind? I allowed you to play around with him, but never thought you're serious enough to actually take his word to heart. Do you really think that he was training you to make you stronger?"

"I will be the one to kill him, I don't know how, but I will. He gave me his word."

Shirayuki knew she could not make her father understand. She could not even convince herself at that moment that she was in any position to say these words. But she could not let her father die there, where the snow never melts and the wind never stops. So with a jerk, her father was forced to release her arm and watch pensively at the storm that soon swallowed her figure.

What she arrived at the mouth of the cave, she was taken aback by the dense cloud of demons that hovered above. Zangetsu's lone figure was standing on the cliff, unmoving. With a clench of her teeth, Shirayuki drew her sword and shot down toward him. But Zangetsu was unfazed by the cold blade that rested on his neck.

Some demons made moves to attack Shirayuki, but retreated with a wave of Zangetsu's hand.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her plainly.

"To kill you."

"I don't have time to play with you right now." At that, Zangetsu made a move to take her sword from his neck. But before he could, Shirayuki jumped away and stood with her sword ready in front of him.

"You know I can't let you leave."

He studied her for a few moments, ignoring the eager demons above them. Zangetsu took a few steps forward and closed the distance between him and Shirayuki.

"I have to go somewhere. I'm sorry."

There was a visible quiver in her hand now, her sword only steadied when it was pressed against Zangetsu's chest and drawing blood. He could see a glisten in her eyes.

"I can't let you leave."

Hearing a sigh escape from Zangetsu's mouth and feeling something taking a hold of her sword, Shirayuki suddenly found herself in an embrace made warm by the liquid that was flowing endlessly from the chest that she was pressed up against.

"Zangetsu – "

"My life is yours for the taking. Not today, but I will come back to you one day. You can kill me then. I hope you do."

That was all she could remember before a thud on the back of her head made her sink into darkness. Suddenly the smell of the air and the movement of the fading stars across the lightening sky became painfully clear to her.

So this was the task that she was born to complete. Shirayuki could only laugh.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Usually, I like to write the author's note when I have completed the chapter, but this time I could not refrain from defending my work a little. I'm feeling cheeky today due to the excess of British comedy I've indulged in today.

There are a few reviews I'd like to address.

To Mikazuki Mitsukai and gadez, first of all thank you for your review. Now, about your comments for the chapters to be longer. I must say I get quite defensive when it comes to my minimalist descriptive style. What bothers me most of all is the excess use of adjectives passing off as description, as if sensuality can be conveyed by the mere words "creamy skin" and "raven tresses". I apologize if this is resentful sounding, but frivolous sentimentality is really the last thing we all need. Nonetheless, I will try to lengthen this chapter for your reading pleasures. ^^

And now to anaime7, who I also thank for the review (including for my other stories) and am afraid would disappoint with the progress of this story. Regardless of my skepticism, I believe in the steadiness of love in the grander scheme of things, but it is certainly susceptible to momentary mistakes and doubts. Please consider this as a preventation measure against future angry comments and disappointments. And I hope you're having a nice vacation.

Finally I assure you, Cinthia7483, that your English is quite impeccable.

Now as a general comment, I'm writing a mystery here and naturally there would be _mysterious events_ here and there. Thus, please distinguish between any confusion stemming from any ambiguities in my narrative and the sense of suspense from reading the story. In the case of the former, please mention it in your reviews and I will try to improve for the future. However if it is the latter, please just follow along with the story patiently.

Oh, and I am experimenting with a sprinkle of metafiction.

Thank you for all your interest and reviews.

Please enjoy this chapter.

* * *

At the end of a dream already forgotten, Ichigo felt himself drift through layers of foggy consciousness and landed back on the living room couch. Immediately, he could feel against his eyelids the brilliant moonlight that was streaming through the window pane. Bringing his arm up to shield his eyes, he waited as his body acclimatized itself to lucidity, regaining sensation in various parts of his body. As he slowly came to, one pushed itself to the front of his mind.

It was an unrest in the pit of his stomach that Ichigo could only remember from his adolescence, one that was starting to spread to down his legs and robbing his ability to think. By now a distant thought, but he could feel the incessant prod of certain baser urges that reminded him of certain nights as a teenager in his bedroom back at the Kurosaki family home. What had brought this on, he wondered. With long deprivation, one's sexual appetite can curbed quite literally to non-existence, especially in Ichigo's case after the final battle in his fifteenth year. But with the slightest provocation, from the right source, it springs out of its oppression like a holy terror with unprecedented wrath. At this very moment, Ichigo found himself ensnared by the memory of this morning, which he only now had time to savour. It would sound terribly cliché in writing, but one misses the warmth of a human body the most in the darkness.

Funny how erroneous it is to label any human sentiment, as one can morph easily into another. Anger at her departure fifteen years ago and his inability to capture her even now drove him to bring his right hand on top of the slight bulge that was already appearing on the top of the shorts that he was sleeping in. Tentatively, as he had not done the act for ages, he ran his hand back and forth over the growing erection, feeling sheepish as his mind frazzled at the sensation. There was a taste of vengeance in the movement of his hand, as if Rukia had been purposely blind of his adolescent love and left before he had a chance to give it to her, and that by breaking his absolute celibacy he was showing her that he could be fine without her. At that thought, Ichigo slipped his hand beneath the shorts' waistband and grasped the entire length of his erection.

Pushing the shorts off of his legs, he could part his legs more easily and soon took to stroke the soft sacs at the base of his penis. The feeling of her body this morning drifted back into his head, the infinite possibilities within them that he never got to discover fifteen years ago and was only beginning to comprehend now. Carnally, his erection began to pulsate when he remembered the moulds of softness that was pressed up against him and the slight parting of her legs when they were entangling with his. But as he imagined her opening up her thighs to take him in and his growingly forceful advances into her, all he could hear was his soul's lonely cry.

_Don't leave me, please don't leave me._

The momentary glee of his childish rebellion earlier faded away into an ache that was crushing down on his chest. His hand moved faster and harder, the painful pleasure was mounting as he gasped for air. As he sought the elusive end, Ichigo was suspended in a heated struggle between the demands of his body and its ability to meet it. When it finally came, he found himself thrown into utter helplessness as a violent contraction shot through his penis and felt a heated pool of sticky mess land on his stomach. Quite immediately, he curled sideways in a ball and sobbed into his closed fists. She left before he could love her, and he may never get another chance to. Suffocating himself was bad enough all these years, but breathing again hurt even more.

The orgasm was nothing less than painful and gave him no satisfaction whatsoever. It did however throw him into quite the predicament. You see, once given room to move around and stretch its joints, he was not sure if he could suppress the demon within him much longer.

* * *

"Did you run into any trouble on your trip, Gin?"

"Captain Kuchiki missed me by a hair. But you mustn't send me on such dangerous missions anymore, Aizen-sama." A smile spread out on the man's lips. "I mean, what _ever _would you do without me?"

"I can ask you the very same."

"What can I say, I had the misfortune of you knowing my biggest weakness." An off-hand chuckle seemed to strip the words of their meanings.

"You know what to do next then, we don't have much time left."

"Of course."

* * *

"Hey Urahara, how much do you know about zanpakutos?" Ichigo could barely keep the words from spilling out of his mouth with a ghastly urgency, his heart hung uncomfortably in his chest.

"Ah, Mr. Kurosaki, glad you decided to speak to us again." His sly voice filtered through the phone, "quite enough for our purposes, I believe. What do you need to know?"

"What are they?"

"You really know how to ask a question, Mr. Kurosaki. Zangetsu is one, just as Benihime is mine."

"Cut to the chase, I know that much. But they can't just be swords, I can see Zangetsu as the old man and the hollow. Are they spirits or what?"

"Well, they are an inherent part of every shinigami's soul. Zangetsu is a manifestation of something within you, when you became a shinigami that something awoke. Of course only souls destined to be shinigamis can call upon it. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

"Can two people, albeit at different times, possess the same zanpakuto?"

"That would be quite impossible, as a shinigami's soul disintegrates upon death, and with it goes the zanpakuto that's a part of it."

The painful anticipation in Ichigo's chest fell away to a wave of excitement, so much so that he was having a difficult time keeping the hand holding the phone steady.

"Would it be sufficient prove that this Rukia is the real one if she knew her zanpakuto's name?"

There was a rare silence on the other end of the phone.

"Shirayuki?"

"She muttered it in her sleep the other day." It was, however, Ichigo's turn to be surprised. "How did you know her zanpakuto's name, I thought they were meant to be secrets?"

"Accidentally while adjusting her gigai back then."

"But would it mean that it's really her?" Ichigo could not pay any less attention to the answer when he was single-mindedly after another.

"It would weigh quite heavily in favour of her really being Miss Kuchiki," Urahara answered cautiously, his mind quickly passing through possible explanations that would dictate otherwise. "But that memory could have been instilled in her by whoever brought her back to life. I would suggest that you still tread carefully, ."

"I will." Ichigo hashed up a quick farewell and hung up the phone. He could hardly contain the giddiness that was rising through his being. Despite Urahara's warnings, there was no doubt in his mind that it was really her. Armed with a legitimacy that dissolved away all of his moral dilemmas, he turned his attention to what he would pick up at the supermarket today after work for dinner.

* * *

Urahara trusted Ichigo's impulsiveness to have been blind to his awkward answers and uncertain tones. There was some information in his possession that he was unwilling to part with in fear of complicating the situation unnecessarily. While he himself highly doubted that this Rukia was an imposter, it worried him more about who had the ability and need to resurrect her.

"Ishida speaking." The phone connected with a click.

"I just received an interesting bit of news from Soul Society, a poor little morsel that was able to fall from the censors." Urahara smiled when in his mind's eye he could see Ishida raise a curious brow.

"Concerning Kurosaki's situation?"

"Well, I can only say marginally so without further information. But apparently there had been a break-in in the Kuchiki home and the perpetrator looked suspiciously like a certain fox-faced man that slithered away right before we got Aizen."

"Ichimaru Gin?" (Of course the writer could not add an exclamation mark without violating rules of grammar and the aesthetics of the manuscript, but the reader can very easily add one on themselves and imagine paramount shock and disbelieve in Mr. Ishida's voice. And to those who know it, the interrobang is just ghastly.)

"Though we have no idea if he was doing it by his own accord or by someone else's instructions, not to mention it's not known what, if he did, he took or did."

"You must have something else to tell, or you wouldn't pass on a bit of useless information like that."

"Ah, you know me too well, Mr. Ishida. I had received a phone call from Mr. Kurosaki just now that seemed to provide some proof for Miss Rukia's identity. Actually I think it is fitting to call her Miss Kuchiki again. You see, she seems to know her zanpakuto's name still."

"No one could have told her that?"

"One's zanpakuto's name is a deeply private and secretive matter, there is an obscure chance that someone could have known it."

"But Kurosaki and you know it."

"Well, it would not come as a surprise to me if Miss Kuchiki had told Mr. Kurosaki at some point during their time together, seeing as they had shared quite the camaraderie. I, unfortunately, had come across the information during my dealings with her gigai those years back." The lie was much easier on the second telling.

"Mm." Urahara could hear form his voice that he was hardly convinced, but he was interrupted by another ringing on Ishida's end of the phone. "I'm sorry Mr. Urahara, but that would be a patient of mine calling, I will have to speak to you at another time."

"Of course, good speaking to you."

* * *

Rukia had only one foot into the classroom door when she felt the command of her body torn away from her. With absolutely no control over the matter, she could only watch her legs move in a most natural manner and walked away from the door. She fought to keep her expressions normal until she emerged once again into the sunshine outside. Rukia had no idea what he wanted from her, as if an assignment came up he could have told her in the usual manner. Taking over her body like this, he must have something urgent he needed her to accomplish.

Unable to even turn her head back, the thought of the school building receding into the distance troubled her as she remembered Ichigo's anger yesterday in the car. If only she could tell him.

She was maneuvered through various streets and the increasingly dingy surroundings made her mind boggle as to what he really wanted her to do. A cluster of temporary housings made from metal sheets came into her view and after turning several tight corners, a girl came into view. She was standing in front of one such said house and looking anxious, as if she was waiting for someone. Rukia frowned, she seemed like a regular target for a regular assignment and thus no need for all the theatrics on his part. Regardless of her doubts, her feet moved at a steady pace toward the girl and so Rukia could only resign herself to letting her body do whatever if was told.

However, the sound of footsteps came into ear shot from behind her. Whoever it was, he or she was running, fast. Amidst the thousands of thoughts running through her mind, the one that stood out was not the fact that she could be caught but how her master could have made such a fatal error. Rukia was finally close enough for the girl to notice her, and whoever was behind her. When her hand encroached itself into the girl's chest, as it had down times before, Rukia felt a rough hand on her shoulder that jerked her body backwards. From the lower vantage point as she hit the ground, she saw the face of the man that she had met in Ichigo's apartment some time back. His name was…Ishida? He was looking at her too, the recognition in his eyes was unmistakable.

The man immediately took to examine the unconscious girl across from Rukia. Before she could process anything that just happened, her body leapt up on its own and fleeted into the shadows.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Once school starts, I'm afraid that I won't be able to update very frequently at all, so here is another chapter churned out. I really regret the end of summer, as it seems that I'm just starting to enjoy it. I hope everyone's summer is going well too.

I thank Sim-chan and Cindy for their high praises and hope that the story will be to your liking in the future.

I apologize to Mikazuki Mitsukai, and rest assured I will remember to put up a warning next time lemon shows up.

And to anaime7 and Mikazuki Mitsukai, yes, I have watched the new filler arc and found it immensely interesting. Shirayuki and Zangetsu, I'm afraid, will remain in the shadows for another chapter or two until time has come to reveal the reason for Zangetsu's disappearance.

Which reminds me, what is everyone's thought on lemons? For necessity of the plot, sex is bound to come up sooner or later. In the case of this story, because of the vast age difference between Ichigo and Rukia the subject of sex is an even trickier subject. Drop me a line in your reviews on your thoughts, namely would I be bombarded with cries of disgust? I must admit, even as the writer I am having trouble writing their interaction due to the age difference.

A warning to some readers, that the darker tones of the story that I spoke of before will start to show in this chapter. There is a slight taste of Humbert Humbert and Lolita in our poor lovers.

Enjoy.

* * *

Running to the ambulance bay, Ichigo saw only an intern standing in wait for the newest victim to come in.

"Shouldn't there be a resident with you?"

"The-he EMT called in and said that it was a doctor who brought the victim in, so he's travelling with them here. She's in stable con-condition for the time being." The man, looking no more than in his mid-20s, stammered a little at the sight of Ichigo's knotted brow. Having finally climbed his way up the hospital hierarchy, it took him a while to remember those dogged days.

"It's fine then." He told the intern with a wave.

As they stood in wait for the ambulance, Ichigo could feel the other man's darting sideway glances toward him. Poor kid, he thought, must have just begun his ER rotation and thrown out on his own because the place was so understaffed. So he walked over and put a hand on the intern's shoulder.

"If she's in stable condition, then I'll handle it, just watch. If not, run inside and get the attending. Hear me?" God, he was getting old.

Before the intern could give him a thankful word, the blaring sirens ripped into the empty ambulance bay and when it came to a screeching halt, it was Ichigo's turn to be unsure of what to do. Following the EMT's loud voice rattling off the patient's stats, he saw Ishida jumping out of the ambulance behind the stretcher.

"Kurosaki!" The surprise was mutual, it seemed. Before Ichigo could ask any questions, the helpless intern beside him prompted him to lean over the fast moving gurney and assess the patient. But like the intern said, she seemed to be in stable condition and required no help from him. So letting the EMT and the intern proceed into the ER, Ichigo stayed outside with Ishida.

"How did you find this one?" Ichigo asked the most obvious question.

"She's the granddaughter of a patient of mine. I got a call from her this morning that her grandmother was having chest pain. Since they lived in the slums in the west, they couldn't get to a hospital soon enough and I had to make a house call." Ishida paused at this moment. The flurry of action around the girl diverted his attention elsewhere, but now that he had come onto the subject, what he saw came back to him with a shiver. "Kurosaki."

"Yeah?" Ichigo was unnerved by the sudden seriousness in Ishida's voice.

"The granddaughter, Ayumi, she was waiting for me in front of their house this morning. When I got there, I saw someone else there too." Ishida hesitated, struggling to find the right wording. "It was Rukia."

"Why would she be there?" Ichigo's reaction was much calmer than Ishida had expected, but that could have been only because he was utterly lost as to what the other man was getting at.

"Rukia was the one who attacked her." Ishida said the words slowly, as if to assure Ichigo that he did not make the accusation on a whim.

"What? It couldn't have been her, she's in school right now." But yesterday's conversation and her cold refusal slid into his stomach, cold and slimy. Ichigo fought to stay convinced of Rukia's absolute innocence.

"It was her, I'm sure. She put her hand into Ayumi's chest just like we thought from the CT scans. Call Rukia's school, ask them if she was in class this morning at around 11."

Ichigo did not like Ishida's tone one bit. Asking for Rukia's alibi meant that he was already assuming her guilt, that they were the good guys out to capture a public enemy. He ran a hand down his face and asked, "where is she now?"

"She got up and ran away when she saw my face. She recognized me from your apartment the other day, and it would be safe to assume that she knows I would be telling you." Seeing Ichigo's immobile face, Ishida could not fathom a guess as to what he was thinking. "Kurosaki, I know you want to protect her. But you need to find out who she is and why she's attacking all these girls. They need protection from her, perhaps even more that Rukia needs from you."

"I'll take care of this, Ishida. I know you're trying to help, but really, stay out of it." Ichigo turned on his heels and began walking into the ER, but a rough hand seized him by the shoulder and wheeled him around. Ishida grabbed his collar in his fists and forced their faces into alignment, so that whatever he says would have a hope of getting through Ichigo's thick skull.

"Kurosaki, listen. You at not fifteen anymore, and you haven't been a shinigami for half of your life. This is not the time to be clouded by your personal feelings for her, she's hurting others, she's not the Rukia you know anymore!"

Ichigo's eyes narrowed dangerously and his pupil constricted to a dark singularity. With a swing of his fist, Ishida was thrown on the ground. Without looking back, he disappeared behind the ER door.

"Don't forget, if it wasn't for her, your wife wouldn't even be here now. We all owe her at least this."

* * *

"Urahara, I made a mistake."

"New developments, Mr. Ishida?"

Ishida told Urahara all that had happened since their phone call this morning, and even the older man could not suppress the utmost of surprises. However, the two still agreed to meet at Ishida's office to better talk about the new course of action.

"So, Miss Kuchiki turned out to be our mystery attacker." The lightness in Urahara's voice seemed unbefitting of the situation, but Ishida could see his position. Knowing now that Rukia was the one who attacked all these girls provided no extra information for the case of her mysterious identity. Granted, it cemented the fact that she did have a suspicious origin, but they all know that already. If any, this only added to the number of mysteries that surrounded her.

"The last time we looked at the victims' files, we thought they all bore resemblance to Miss Kuchiki. Now with the new information on our hands, it would be safe to assume that we were thrown a red herring, all to divert suspicion from her."

"Meaning that there most likely is a larger scheme behind her appearance and the attacks?"

After nodding in agreement with Ishida, Urahara took on a more sobering tone. "Looking into the matter will be even harder from now on, as we've lost any information that Mr. Kurosaki can provide us. And if some darker power does lurk behind Miss Kuchiki I'm afraid that he has put himself in quite the vulnerable position, and we are not the best to help him." Urahara spied a flash of guilt on Ishida's face and reassured him, "even though it was better if you had told me first, I don't see how Mr. Kurosaki's reaction would be any different if the truth came from either one of us."

"In the mean time, what do we do?"

"In the mean time, Mr. Ishida, retrieve all the information about the victims from Mr. Kurosaki's office and find out all you can about Miss Kuchiki's time in the real world. And I believe I will make a trip to Soul Society and meet a few acquaintances. In my absence, perhaps the help of _Mrs._Ishida would be welcoming to you?"

* * *

Ichigo did not come to pick her up after school today. Rukia wondered if it was because he was still angry with her because of yesterday. However, rather than making her way home, she found herself walking down a busy street. She did not want to see him yet.

People and shop windows passed by, and in the endlessly flowing stream, she felt alone. She liked it, Rukia decided. The oblivion of mind that comes with the mechanical movement of putting one foot in front of another gave her some respite. When her legs get tired, she would sit down somewhere until she was well enough to start walking again.

A summer's day seemed to stretch on forever. The last bell of school felt like a distant memory, and yet the night seemed equally far away. Despite the many cars and people around, there was a quietness and intimacy to a summertime dusk. The city was enveloped in the soft golden rays of a lowering sun, lolling it to rest after a day of frenzied activity. Her thoughts were likewise quiet. Thoughts and possibilities ran through her head, but there was not a hint of panic or anxiety to them. Her life was not her own nor of this world's, so nothing Ichigo or his friend can do will have any real effect on her.

Mostly likely, she thought, he would turn her out of his home and hand her over to the police. She can get rid of the police easily enough and was more than capable of taking care of herself, so why did she feel the weight of dread on her feet? It took her the time of walking through two street blocks to realize that she was disappointed, at how quickly she had to bid goodbye to the life with Ichigo. Despite her blindness to them, there harboured in her mind the slightest thread of attachment to the comforts of domesticity. However, her connection with Ichigo took much longer for Rukia to understand, if she did at all. Her affection for the man came from somewhere deep inside her, where it survived the ravage of memories and time. The closest she ever came to finding it was when Shirayuki spoke to her that night. When put into words, she could only say that Shirayuki was the one loving him and she merely provided the medium for her.

When Rukia looked up by chance, she saw the apartment building that she living in with Ichigo was coming into view. Her lips curved ironically, thinking that even unconsciously she was drawn back to this place. Guessing by the darkening sky that it must have been near 9 o'clock, she quickened her pace forward and hoped that Ichigo was not worried.

Entering the apartment door and calling the customary "I'm home", Rukia's previous worries were replaced by a new and entirely different one. A suitcase lay on the living room floor and the open bedroom door gave view to utter mayhem. Was he packing for her to get out, she wondered.

A bustling Ichigo emerged from the bathroom holding two toothbrushes spotted her immobile in the doorway and said simply:

"I've already packed. We're leaving, now."

Despite feeling foolish, Rukia somehow relaxed a little hearing him say "we".

"Where?"

"Anywhere." Even as he replied, he was busy fitting their poor little possessions into the suitcase.

Before Rukia could ask anymore questions, Ichigo closed the suitcase with a thud and grabbed open the apartment door behind Rukia.

"Let's go."

As Rukia watched streetlights outside of the car window grow go by, she listened to Ichigo's rapid explanations of the preparations he had made today.

"I went to your school and told them that I'm moving to a new job and so took you off of the school register. I quit my job too. But don't worry, I have quite a bit of money saved up so we'll be fine for at least a few months."

She wondered if he realized, or was just avoiding the fact, that he never told her _why_ they were leaving and she never asked. Neither of them spoke of Ishida either. The reluctance of the two to acknowledge the peculiarity of the situation made the air even stranger. Ichigo seemed to be on an adrenaline high, his eyes shining abnormally bright and fingers drumming on the steering wheel. In contrast, Rukia remained silent, utterly unsure of what would happen next. As the night deepened and catching a few yawns from Rukia, Ichigo had the good sense to stop at a clean looking enough hotel and signed out a room. The concierge at the front desk eyed them suspiciously, obviously reacting to the oddity of this pair. But Ichigo was for once wholly oblivious.

After taking a shower and dressed for bed, Rukia sat on the only bed in the room and looked out the window. What are they to do now? Just driving from one place to another, running from the inevitable truths. And what would they be as? Father and child, lovers, partner in crime-

Her thought was cut off by the sound of the bathroom opening and Ichigo's footsteps coming out into the room. There was a moment of silence where Rukia kept her eyes fixed on the window but her ear peaked to listen behind her. He was walking towards her, and her nerves tightened at the anticipation of various things he might do. The bed sank and creaked behind her, and the proximity of his body made her skin prickle. Suddenly, she felt a towel being draped over her head and Ichigo beginning to dry her hair.

"I first met you when I was fifteen, you came in through my window and I thought you were a thief…"


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I am so very sorry for the long time it has taken me to update, and this short chapter. I just want everyone to know that I have no given up on this story and cannot wait to see how it plays out.

Please enjoy the chapter.

* * *

"Ah, Captain Kuchiki, remind me how long it's been."

Urahara was not the sort of man to be bothered by the cold gaze that the man was giving him, despite the fact that he had the entire 12th division under him when Byakuya was still taunted by Yoruichi.

"I would much rather not. What is your business here today?"

"I caught wind of a break-in at the Kuchiki house a while back?" Urahara answered unhurriedly.

Byakuya's eyes narrowed. Private pains are best left untouched even by the sufferer.

"It was Ichimaru Gin." He surprised himself by saying. "He took her Zanpakutou."

Urahara studied the man before him silently, even sorry to have made the visit. He remembered something Yoruichi said to him many years ago while drinking to the sight of the moon, bright in the wintery sky.

"Why do you insist on tormenting the boy? It seems to be too easy for you to even have fun with it." He had remarked carelessly.

Yoruichi looked into her cup, swirling the clear liquor around in her cup. He remembered how neat her profile looked in the moonlight reflecting of the snow.

"It's lonely up here, captains and nobles like us. You and I don't realize it because we had the fortune, well, misfortune for our families, of meeting each other when we were young. Among the four houses, Kaien, Isshin and I have proved ourselves to be quite the trouble makers and rebels. Naturally, only Byakuya is left to hold up the rules and be made an example of. It's a tough life. I want to help him, just a little."

"I'm sorry for everything." Urahara surprised himself too by saying. But Byakuya was not paying the least attention to him, his eyes were on the ground, seemingly lost in a thought.

"Her Zanpakuto is still here, intact and waiting for its master to return any day. Yet, she is not here either, neither dead nor alive. Time does not move in a house like this."

"Forgive me for saying, but I do have some reason to believe that Miss Kuchiki," he noticed the slightest wince on Byakuya's face, "is not dead. The first being her Zanpakuto still being whole, but also do you have any recollection of her last battle with Ichimaru?"

Byakuya's gaze suddenly lifted to Urahara's face.

"Did you notice something peculiar also? It was too late when I finally reached her, but when Ichimaru delivery the last blow, her body -"

"Faded out for a moment." Urahara said with Byakuya in unison.

"But when I inspected her afterwards there was nothing out of the norm, thus I dismissed it as an illusion. You saw it too?"

There was a rare gleam of life in Byakuya's eyes. Urahara knew he was going to regret this in the very next moment, but now that it seemed Ichimaru was involved, he may need all the help he can get.

"Mr. Kurosaki informed me a while back that he seemed to have found Miss Kuchiki again." He said slowly, measuring each word. "Thus, the renewed interest in her Zanpakuto came at a strange time."

"Is it really her?"

"For the moment it seems quite likely, yes, as Mr. Kurosaki informed me that she knew some things that would be impossible for others to know."

As soon as the words left his mouth Urahara's heart sank.

"Like?" The waves of unsuppressed reiatsu emanating from the man before him was making it a little hard to breath.

"The name of his Zanpakuto."

"Why did she not return to Soul Society or at least request your help?"

"Well, you see, it seems that Miss Kuchiki is devoid of any memories other than the odd pieces."

"Where is she now?"

"…In the care of Mr. Kurosaki."

"And I'm assuming that he has no desire to inform me of any of this."

"Mr. Kurosaki…detected some dangers facing Miss Kuchiki and took to hide the two of them from the world, even me."

Urahara wondered how much worse this could sound, and Byakuya's face could not have been anymore gray with suppressed rage. Luckily for Urahara, he called to the servants to "escort the guest out". As he walked out of the front gate and out under the sizzling mid-day sun, he told himself that it was really all for the best, though he remained unconvinced.

* * *

The last word out of his mouth still hung in the air, so was his heart as he watched her downturned face and waited for a verdict. Was he to be believed?

"Ichigo." He heard her say.

Deep inside her mind where even time does not touch, she knew him. Hearing his outlandish story, played out in her mind by a cast of strangely clad people and unimaginable monsters, Rukia felt her heart wrenched until it bled.

"It's been so long, why did you not forget?" She asked.

"Even if I can, I'm the only one who remembers it all. If I forget, it would be all lost."

"Isn't it unfair though? For you to remember and for me to forget?"

Rukia suddenly felt her eyes sting and something warm swim up to her nose. She was crying, crying for the times that the man had to live in his memories, crying for the times that he had to wake up from them. As inexplicable as it was, she believed him entirely and without a reason.

"What if I never remember? What if you will be alone forever?" The thought sent her into a fit of sobs with an intensity that shocked even her. Buried in a sadness so great, she felt like she was not crying just for him, but for many things. For times lost between people everywhere, for the existence of a lonely life.

"You don't have to remember. Today will be the starting line, we'll find things to remember together." Ichigo enveloped her into his hold and pressed her head against his chest. "You came back to me, it'll all be fine now."

"Ichigo." She said his name amidst the sobs. How breathtakingly wonderful.

I-chi-go.

"Hm." He answered into her shoulder. How long had he waited to hear it.

"Ichigo."

"Hm."

"Ichigo."

"Hm."

"Ichigo."

"Thank you, for coming back."

She sat up from his embrace and took his face in her hands, her thumb rubbing the stubbles on his jaw. The solidity of his form in her hands thrilled her. He smiled like a child at her, eyes shining. The brilliance dazzled Rukia for a moment, thinking that as long as she was with him, all would be right with the world. The realization no longer scared her. Rather, it made her rise to press her lips against his.

Clumsily, the two stayed immobile as their lips remained glued together. The sensation was certainly frazzling to both minds, but instinct drove Ichigo to part his mouth and licked her upper lip. It efficiently parted her mouth and soon found their teeth cluttering together in a desperate attempt to become even more closely entangled with each other. Clichés are really inescapable as it felt truly like hunger, insatiable hunger for becoming as close as two bodies can possibly be.

As the two clutched desperately at each other, they wished:

Let no one be unhappy tonight.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I'm finally off of school and have a suspicious amount of time on my hands.

Seeing such great reviews for the last chapter made me realized just how bad I had been to keep my readers waiting, and encouraged me to update. Now that I've started writing this story again, I really found it to be such a joy. But it seems that I can only manage short chapters at the moment, so I will try to update often.

The elusive lemon finally made its appearance in this chapter. I know it's rather unusual to depict not the first time, but rather the fourth or fifth time of love making. But I just think that realistically, the first time is usually awkward and painful and hardly romantic, and I feel that I get more things across this way. However, please include it in your reviews if you did not like this arrangement and I would remember for future notices. Needless to say, there is sexual content in this chapter, let those who are advert be warned.

So, please accept this chapter as an early Christmas present, though I should be updating more before then.

Enjoy.

* * *

"Matsumoto!"

Hitsugaya could hardly keep the fizzling annoyance covered in his voice, not that he was trying to as he had lost count how many times he had found his lieutenant spacing out before a stack of files this week. Matsumoto snapped out of her daze and gave a rare apology to her captain, which surprised him so much that he forgot to be angry.

"Is something on your mind?" Hitsugaya looked across their desks.

"Ah-h, no, captain, I had a little too much to drink last night."

Matsumoto forced a few dry chuckled and looked down at the documents to hide the suspicious flush on her face. It's been days since he came to see her, but the shock still refused to subside. After so many years willing herself to hate him, her resolve fell at the first sight of him. As if the fifteen years that separated them was nothing, at her door he cocked his head to one side and smiled, saying:

"You are still as pretty as I remembered, Rangiku."

She bit her lip then trying not to cry. But it was Gin's face that she was seeing, she told herself, it was his scent that she was smelling and his voice that she was hearing. And so the tears fell, as they were destined to fall for this man. When confronted with the fact, Matsumoto Rangiku was a woman who found herself reduced to the lowest of ashes before the little thing called love.

Not forgetting his identity as an intruder, Gin stepped past her into the room and closed the door behind them. He then turned to face her and brushed a strand of hair, which was matted against her face by the tears, from her eyes.

"A woman is the ugliest when she cries." He took her into his arms and whispered in her ear, "and Rangiku is the prettiest one I know. So don't cry. Shh-."

Matsumoto never dared to even dream of such a scene, where such generous show of his tenderness was enough for her to drown in. And she would gladly do it.

" Gin…" She sobbed into his shoulder.

"Aizen is coming back, and I'm helping him for now." He so cruelly dragged her back to reality by saying, still holding her tight. "But I'm only pretending, for you and the Soul Society. When the time comes, I will betray him and this is what I need you to do."

She fought to remember each word he whispered in her ear amidst the shock and tears. Gin finished by saying,

"-And finally, this is a little secret between you and I. Okay?"

Matsumoto nodded firmly and her heart leapt when she saw him smile, one that she remembered only from their early days in Rukongai.

"Always such a good girl." He grazed his lips past the corner of her left eye, and before she awoke from the moment he was already gone.

The open doors let in a cool draft, and Matsumoto lightly touched where he had kissed her. With not even a hint of heat left, she wondered if he was only a memory.

She suddenly felt like picking up some dried persimmons.

* * *

Opening her eyes to a room steeped in twilight, Rukia wondered how long they had been in the hotel room. Gradually, her consciousness returned and alerted her of her tangled limbs with the man beside her. And so did her memories, accompanied by a rush of blood up her face.

Pressing her face against the man's chest, scene of Ichigo's relentless conquest of her body ran through her mind. Her skin burned as she remembered the path that his lips traveled down from her lips to her breasts, and felt her nipples grow hard as if they were once again in the warm cavity of his mouth, his tongue evoking reactions that she did not even know her body was capable of. A growing unrest inside her reminded her to the fact that she had fallen asleep with him still inside of her. The increasingly wet warmth that was enveloping it must have brought Ichigo out of his slumber too.

The initial pain had diminished with each joining of their bodies, leaving nothing but a pleasant sense of fulfillment as she felt herself once again stretched to the very limit. Rukia felt a hot breath brush past her forehead as she spreaded open her legs wider to take him in even deeper. She looked up in time for Ichigo to catch her lips in his and pressed her down onto the bed. The change in their position made Rukia give a gasp as his erection slipped against a place inside her, making her arch into Ichigo's chest and held onto his neck. Ichigo freed up an arm that was supporting him above the bed to hold her small form against him and resumed the rhythmic movement that they had come to learn so well in the past few days.

Without the fumbling urgency of the first few times to satisfy fifteen years worth of longing, they could explore each other's bodies more languidly and wonder what it had all meant, the rubbing together of two imperfect lumps of flesh. As Ichigo slowly pulled his entire length out of her and pushed back in with equal concentration, Rukia kissed the countless scars of small and big across the expanse of his chest. Carefully, she ran her tongue across the scarred skin, hoping to taste the story behind each of them. So carefully did she do this that she was not aware of the fact that Ichigo had stopped his share of the motions.

"Are these because of me?" She looked up at his seemingly pained face to ask.

"Y-yes. I think you'd better stop though, or I don't think I would be able to last much longer."

Rukia blushed immediately at these words, and barely squeezed out a "yes" from where she buried her face in his chest. Ichigo resumed his thrusting and soon enough his breathing became ragged, so she brought him down with her back to the mattress and let his body cover hers, where Ichigo buried his face against the nook of her neck. Her hands found their way across his back and held on as his advances picked up speed. Marveling at the delicious friction that two bodies can create, Rukia took his face in her face and brought it close to hers for a kiss. His eyes were closed in absolute concentration of the movement of his lower body, but allowed her to guide his searching lips to hers. She smiled in the kiss at this display of infantile vulnerability and unquestionable trust.

He broke the kiss as his breathing came in sharp gasps and his movements became erratic. Drifting about helplessly in the sea of desire, Rukia managed a gasp when she felt his semen, burning against her insides, pulsated into deep within her. Ichigo's body was rigid for a few moments before relaxing into a pool of hazy warmth that enveloped her. And then, she remembered something.

"Ichigo, do you love me?"

"Of course." His voice against her shoulder had a sleepy quality to it.

"Then why didn't Zangetsu love Shirayuki?"

* * *

Urahara hid around the corner until he heard the thud of two bodies falling against ground as his cue to come out.

"After so many years, it's good to see you still deserve the name as the Flash Goddess." He smiled.

The dark skinned woman gave a slight huff and said:

"Kisuke, wonder why no one thinks that you're trust-worthy?"

He gave a dry chuckled and the two of them snuck into the shadowy confines of the central library. Urahara took a slip of paper out of the breast pocket of his jacket and signed:

"My new transponder traded to Kurotsuchi for this. This is going on Kurosaki's tab." He then turned to Yoruichi and handed her the sheet. "I'll treat you to a plate of milk for this when we get back"

Urahara paid the dear price of insulting the former captain of Squad 2 by having an avalanche of books dropped on top of him in an instant.

"I'm expecting that plate of milk at sundown, so better get to work." She smirked. "Kisuke."


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Please accept this chapter as my Christmas present to you for following this story through thick and thin this past year. ^^

Lendra-chan's comment had me thinking for a while, and now quite an elaborate web of has formed in my mind as to the numerous back-stories and twists I want to put into this story. So, for better or worse, I think this will be my longest story yet.

Also, Lendra-chan also brought up another good point concerning Rukia's character. I must admit adding dimensions to her characters has been a difficult task as nothing seems to quite fit with her new identity. Having lost her memories, she's no longer the Rukia in the series. I feel that I can't rush to demonstrate her original strength of will as she after all is a 15-year old girl. And it's unrealistic for her to suddenly become lively and feisty seeing that being Gin's pawn was all she knew her entire life. But I don't want to make her mindless and completely reliant on Ichigo either. I sort of take Ayanami Rei's character from EVA as reference, albeit far less stoic. Please leave me a line in your reviews on your thoughts on the subject.

I wonder how much everyone will like the Urahara/Yoruichi back-story in this chapter. I've really grown to like the two after re-watching the _Turn Back the Pendulum_ arc. There are a few other characters' pasts that I want to dig deeper into. Can everyone comment on how you feel about introducing supporting actors into the story? I am sort of aiming toward creating something like the original series.

Thank you to everyone who had left such lovely comments to the last chapter.

Please enjoy and happy holidays.

* * *

Ichigo stared for a moment when he saw Rukia standing on the back porch against a background of greenery in the backyard. Hearing him coming up behind her, she turned around and said with a smile.

"I think this place is the best."

His heart skipped a beat as the breeze picked up the hem of her skirt and swept her hair off her shoulders. Ichigo suddenly saw a vision of himself returning home at the end of a day and seeing her standing here waiting for him, warming him up toward the house. Tired of the bare walls of a hotel room, they had been visiting houses in the city trying to find their new home. Money had not been an issue as Ichigo had quite a bit saved up and it was a small town with low house pricings, but it had been more than a week and no house had felt right. Today it was an old-fashioned one on the outskirts of town that Rukia immediately took a liking to upon seeing the picture. Ichigo secretly wondered if it was not the resemblance to dwellings in Soul Society that lured her.

He walked forward into the waning afternoon sunshine and heaved a content sigh. Leaves had replaced the pink blossoms on the cherry trees planted along the back wall, but the full plumes of green swaying in the breeze were far more pleasing in his eyes with their vivacity to grow. Like them, from now on, he just wanted to live an ordinary life and be happy with her with all his energy. Rukia sat down and dangled her feet over the edge, after taking a good view of the scenery before her, she turned up her face toward the sun and closed her eyes to enjoy the now gentle warmth of its rays.

"Do you think we will see the stars here at night?" She asked.

Ichigo sat down beside her and laid down with his head on her lap, pretending to seriously inspect the piece of sky that could be seen beyond the roof.

"Seems like it."

"Then can we live here?"

He turned to bury his face in her stomach and for a while fell silent. Rukia too waited quietly for a response, feeling no need to disturb the moment of peace.

"Mm."

In less than a week, Ichigo arranged for the payment of the house and purchased the bare basics for them to start living in their new home. There was some cleaning and repair to be done in the house, for it had been uninhabited for the past few years, but as they sat on the back porch after dinner everyday looking up at the starry sky, he could not ask for more.

* * *

"What are you trying to find here?"

Yoruichi asked as she picked up a book from the ground and opened to a random page. It was written in the old language of Soul Society that she remembered being part of her education to prepare her as the head of a noble house. From what little she could decipher, it seemed to be a history of sort of the early days of Soul Society.

"It's a long story, where do I start?" Urahara mused as he rubbed the stubbles on his chin. "I trust that as a former head of household you know about the Spirit King?"

"The ruler of Soul Society who no one has ever seen?"

"This goes back before there was a systematic recording of history, but it's been said that a long time ago the Royal family was in intimate contacts with the Gotei 13, unlike today that information is only known by the Captain-Commander."

"What happened?"

"It was rumored that when it was time to name the next one in line for the throne, the heir disappeared and when an investigation was carried out, it had something to do with a shinigami. Thus, the Royal family deemed such close relations with the commoners dangerous and cut off all unnecessary contacts."

"That's interesting and all, but what does that have to do with Kurosaki?"

"Ah, patience is a virtue Yoruichi. The heir's name was said to be Sode no Shirayuki." The man paused for effect, "that's also the name of Kuchiki's Zanpakuto."

The woman's eyes widened, and had to admit to herself that Urahara made the most of his time was the captain of Squad 12, getting his hands on information of such sort.

"I asked Kurotsuchi to get me a list of records that contained the name, or is from around that time. None of these are official history but informal records written by people who had such a miscellaneous interest. So it's bound to have some mistakes or inaccuracies, but it's up to us to piece something together."

"You're sure this has something to do with her?"

"Well, the fact that her Zanpakuto didn't disappear those years back means that there much be something special about it. Anyhow, it's a place to start."

"Kisuke, you are not just trying to pay back for what happened to Kuchiki anymore, are you."

"A question should sound like a question, Yoruichi." Urahara smiled, "they just remind me of two kids I used to know."

* * *

That was when she could still be called a girl, the day she met Urahara Kisuke.

"Ahhhhh!"

That morning, Yoruichi was crossing the courtyard on her way back from the dojo when she heard a voice in the distance. Just as she was turning around to see what was happening, something shot past her left cheek, leaving a breeze in its wake. When she did in fact turn around, she was pummeled to the ground by someone. A boy, she saw when she came to, who was did not waste a second scrambling up from above her to continue chasing whatever he was after. Anger rose up in her at his utter disregard, not that the princess of the Shihouin house ever knew what that tasted like, so with a single flash step she stepped before the boy and cut off his path.

"Who do you think you are?" She bared her teeth and squeezed the words out with as much menace as a child could muster.

"Urahara Kisuke," the boy barely looked at her for a second with an apologetic smile before his gaze flittered to somewhere behind her in the distance. "Please let me go, my invention broke loose just now and I have to – "

With a low growl Yoruichi grabbed the boy's collars and threw him against the ground.

"Has no one ever taught you that you should apologize at a time like this?"

Enraging her even more, the boy named Urahara only looked up to her from where he sat on the ground and smiled at her meekly. Years later when she dreamt the scene once again, she had to squint her eyes even though the light given off by the child's smile and pale blonde hair had nothing to do with the morning sun.

Before he had a chance to reply, they boy heard a voice coming toward them.

"Lady Yoruichi!"

Running near, the maid saw the other child and immediately chided:

"Urahara Kisuke! You know that the lower houses aren't allowed in the courtyard. Come with me, you are going to get a beating for this." Grabbing the boy up and pushing him along, she looked back at Yoruichi apologetically and said, "please forgive him, Lady Yoruichi, this child is always up to some antics. I'll get him out of here now. Are you quite unharmed?"

Yoruichi gave a slight nod befitting of her status and turned to walk away. Not yet out of ear shot, she could hear the maid's scolding words and the boy's futile claims for his innocence.

Granted, after this incident some interest was roused in her about the boy, but as someone such as herself to associate with the lower house servants was out of the question. So the memory faded until one day she passed the open kitchen door while sneaking out of the house to play and heard the servants gossip among themselves.

"Did you hear about that Urahara boy who got fifty beatings for playing inside the main house courtyard? Fifty on a child!"

"My sister was the one who took him back to his quarters afterwards, she said that he couldn't even lie down afterwards."

"He was always getting into scrapes here and there, but I guess this time was the last straw for the housekeeper."

"Well, who could blame him, without a parent to teach him how to behave."

"Come to think of it, where are his parents?"

"I heard that they were shinigamis in the Onmitsukido, and apparently they died on a mission years back when the boy was just born."

For the first time in her life of a mere couple of centuries long, Yoruichi felt the weighing down of her heart that was called guilt for what she had said to Urahara Kisuke that day. How could have she known that there really was no one to watch him grow up?

That afternoon she made an excuse to skip dinner and looked through the entire main house for what he was chasing after that day. In the last light of dusk she found the mechanical butterfly, broken but still in one piece, under a shrub in the west garden. While she could not make head and tails of it, Yoruichi still marveled at how he could have invented a contraption as complicated as such.

At an hour when the night was the deepest, Urahara Kisuke was roused out of his restless sleep when a cold draft blew across his back, which was left uncovered to air out the wounds.

"Who is it?" He could barely pull up his head from the pillow and look up at the light that was spilling in through the open screen door.

"Shh! Don't wake up the others!" A voice hissed beside him, not before pulling close the doors. It was then that he remembered that he was sleeping in the servants' quarter, where the others' quiet breathing could be heard.

As he became more lucid, the pain on his back was returning too. At first, it was only a whisper. But gradually, a chorus joined in and each bloody mark screamed. It was only in such a state that he forgot to be surprised when he saw a masked face in the near darkness was revealed to be of the girl who he ran into days before.

"Don't move." He heard her command him. _Not that I can_, he thought ruefully but remained quiet.

Then he felt something cold on his back, an ointment of sort it seemed. As the girl worked across his back, he was glad to discover that the burning pain was subsiding into a dull ache. It was only then he had the presence of mind to blush at the touch of her fingers running down his skin.

"Okay, it should heal much sooner now. I took this from the Shihouin house's own medicine supply."

"…Thank you." After a moment of hesitation, Urahara Kisuke reacted the only way he knew how as he smiled awkwardly into the dark. Inexplicably, slumber was starting to pull him into that warm abyss that allowed all respite.

"Idiot, I'm only paying back for the other day." What exactly she needed to atone for, Yoruichi left unspoken. When the boy did not reply, she knew that the ointment was taking its effect and thought it was her time to go. But that was not before leaving a cloth bundle by the pillow side of a boy already breathing deeply in an undisturbed sleep.

The real beginning of their story was when she showed up at his door days after asking if he had fixed the butterfly yet. When they were found playing together by the housekeeper and Urahara Kisuke was at the risk of getting another fifty beatings, the little princess of the Shihouin house for the first time played her role to the full and made the head of the house agree to let the boy stay inside the main house as her playmate.

With Yoruichi as his protector, Urahara Kisuke was finally free to do as he wished with the entire Shihouin house at his disposal. As the servants learned to accept the constant disappearance of things from around the house and mysterious sounds during the day became a normal part of life, the years passed from the two children soundlessly. This was excusing the few noisy days like when Urahara graduated from the academy and when Yoruichi became the new head of the Shihouin house.

But there must come a day to pay for the pain of growing up, which they were excused from in their little world only big enough for two. When it finally happened, it was too terrible.

The speed at which everything transpired only made him laugh ruefully that he, the inventor of Hogyoku himself, did not even get a chance to use it and only wished that Aizen had waited for his turn. It was not until he was thrown against the ground of their secret training base by an angry Yoruichi that he was beginning to understand where everything was going.

"I've brought everything we need," Yoruichi saw a smile that was beginning to surface on his face and retorted, "don't start, I'll deal with you later for not taking me along last night."

"Yoruichi you will be a wanted criminal now too."

"So what?"

"Run away with me?" Perhaps that was the first and last romantic thing he would ever say.

"A question should sound like a question, Kisuke."

They exchanged a knowing look and Urahara bent down before her sitting figure and stretched out his hand.

"Urahara Kisuke, glad to make your acquaintance."

"Shihouin Yoruichi, likewise."

* * *

"Captain Ukitake, Captain Kuchiki is here to see you."

Ukitake Juushiro looked up from his desk at Kiyone's voice.

"Ah, please tell him to come in."

A cool draft preceded the man as he came into the office, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Ukitake wondered what he would want from him. By seniority and experience, he preceded Kuchiki Byakuya by a few thousand folds, but he had always felt uneasy before this man. Birth right was the deciding difference between them, Ukitake decided, as no number of battles and victories can equal the weight of the kenseikan. Over the years, he had heard of the various stories about the Kuchiki heir and subsequently the head of household, like the waves he made in Soul Society about marrying a commoner and adopting his late wife's sister, who later became a member of his squad. He wondered if everything that had happened to him was in fact slowly solidifying Kuchiki Byakuya's solitude, the passing of his wife, his sister and finally lieutenant each a brick to the ever-growing wall around him.

"Captain Ukitake, is there somewhere I can speak in private?" That was the first thing that Kuchiki Byakuya said upon entering the room.

"Uh, of course. Please follow me to the captain's room."

While walking down the corridor of Squad 13, Ukitake wondered if he should try to make conversation, after all it was the polite thing to do. But a glance at Kuchiki Byakuya's face he felt it was best if he remained silent. Along the way he was occupied with replying to the greetings of squad members in the other man's stead, for he was, after all, Ukitake Juushiro.

Closing the door behind them, Ukitake motioned for the other captain to speak.

"Do you remember my sister, Kuchiki Rukia, who was an officer in Squad 13… before her death fifteen years ago?" Kuchiki Byakuya began, his voice absolutely flat.

"Ah, yes, I convey my condolence as her captain."

"Thank you," though his tone had no sign of warming. "I was informed recently that she had been sighted in the human world, though without any memory of her identity."

"Is that so?" Ukitake exclaimed in his gentle manner, "by who?"

"Urahara Kisuke paid a visit to me a few days ago."

"The former captain of Squad 12 who was exiled for the hollowfication experiments?"

"The very same."

"Do you plan to bring her back here?"

"That is the matter for which I have come here today to request your aid. Urahara Kisuke told me that she is presently in Kurosaki Ichigo's care, who seems has no intention of allowing that to happen."

"Kurosaki Ichigo, the ryoka?" It was an understatement to say that Ukitake was surprised in the least today, hearing so many relics of the past being brought up.

"Yes." Kuchiki Byakuya paused for a moment, unsure how to phrase his next words and leave his pride intact. "My own efforts to track down my sister's whereabouts have been frustrated by the new regulations that have come into effect recently. I can no longer demand the information from Squad 12 without Central 46's permission. And the position of my lieutenant has remained unfilled since Abarai Renji's death, thus while I still hold certain privileges as the head of the Kuchiki house, I find myself requiring another's assistance in the matter."

"But Captain Kuchiki, do you ascertain that it is your sister?"

"Urahara Kisuke seemed to believe quite firmly that it is her. However, I have reason to believe that her reappearance had something to do with a larger scheme of events. As you might have heard, there was a break-in at the Kuchiki house a while back. The only object that was taken was the remnants of my sister's Zanpakuto, and the intruder was Ichimaru Gin."

At the mention of an old enemy, Ukitake frowned and only began to realize the gravity of the situation.

"That is unexpected indeed." The white haired man mused, knowing what hid under Kuchiki Byakuya's words, "do you suspect that the recent reforms in Seireitei have some connection with the matter that you have just accounted?"

"It is certainly inconvenient for me that her reappearance occurs at such a time, making one wonder if it is no coincidence."

"I'm glad that my suspicions are not unfounded, for I've been puzzled too. But I cannot think of a reason for such censorship."

"For now, locating my sister is my priority. However, perhaps something might come into light in the process." Kuchiki Byakuya's tone subtly reminded Ukitake to not forget why he had paid a visit today.

"Ah, yes. I will see what I can do."

"I trust that Captain Ukitake you will understand if this matter is to be kept in confidence."

With a curt nod Kuchiki Byakuya turned around to leave. Asking for help did not turn out to be as difficult as he had thought, though that might only be due to the distracting anger that had been simmering in his stomach ever since Urahara's visit.

_Kurosaki Ichigo, _he thought_, I gave you the chance to protect her and you failed. This time, I will make sure that I do not make the same mistake. _


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Ahh, long time no see. Things have been occupying my time more than it should. But now that it's reading week, I have some free time on my hands to update.

So as per some requests, I try to show a vignette of Ichigo and Rukia's daily life, domesticity in its most naked form. I did have a lot of fun writing this chapter, albeit it is shorter than some others.

Just a short interlude to carry you guys until I have time to develop the bigger plot.

And also I'm beginning a new story line between Shirayuki and Byakuya's zanpakuto, Senbouzakura.

_Gubijinso_ is a book written by Natsume Souseki about a pair of siblings who share the same father and fell in love, with the sister dying tragically in the end. And _Norwegian Wood_ is by Murakami Haruki.

Please enjoy.

* * *

Whenever Rukia found herself alone in the house, she always took refuge in a bath.

The white porcelain clawfoot bath tub was something of a peculiar sight in this house that smelled faintly of decaying wood whenever the weather grows damp. But once one grow to luxuriate in its luscious curves that were irreconcilable with the cold gleam it gave off, it would plant a seed of indulgence so deep in the bones that prove to have no anecdote.

Rukia watched with a drowsy eye the swirling traces of water vapour above the tub while listening to the shuffling of raindrops on the trees from outside the bathroom window. Underneath the grey sky, with the colours washed of a few shades and sounds muffled in the moist, world seem to be the least bit more sympathetic. Just as when her vision began to swim between the room and a warmer incoherence, a sudden thud made by the book that fell from her lax fingers woke her. Then she heard a shuffle from some distance that was the opening of the front door.

"I'm home!"

"I'm in the bath."

She called back to Ichigo's voice and feigned nonchalance by pretending to be particularly interested by the cherry tree outside the window. But hearing the familiar cadence of his footsteps, with a lingering _pat_ after each step, she unconsciously sank lower into the hot water with a comfortable sigh. Like the pocket watch that the owner put around a puppy's neck to help it sleep, whether it be his footsteps coming up behind her as she sat on the back porch in the summer dusk with a pot of tea or his heartbeat as she lay close to him at night, she could have no worries in its midst. Finally a soaked Ichigo greeted her at the bathroom door with a sodden cardboard box in his arms.

Rukia could hardly suppress a gasp when she got out of her bath and donned a bathrobe that was lying beside the tub.

"What happened? Didn't you take an umbrella with you?"

He was busy setting down the cardboard box which revealed a sorry looking little creature trying to burrow into a corner for some warmth.

"I found this little guy on the way home, and I didn't have an arm free for the umbrella while carrying the box." He looked up to her with a smile, squinting as water droplets fell from his matted hair into his eyes.

Handing him a towel, Rukia took the time to lift the kitten out of the box as Ichigo dried himself. With pieces of its ear missing and its wet fur clumped into patches, it was pitiful indeed. But as it rubbed its head against her hand, a precious source of warmth, something inside her begin to liquefy as she realized that she was to be responsible for another. Without realizing it, she held it up to her face and grazed its nose against hers, smiling all the while.

"Mind sharing your bath with him?"

Hearing his voice piping up behind her, Rukia blushed a little as she felt on her back the heat radiating off of his chest and nodded in a hurry.

"Ready for a bath?" Ichigo took the kitten from her hands and let it curl up in the palm of hand before lowering it into the warm water. At first it gave a few frantic flailing of its limbs at the unfamiliar sensation, but quickly relaxed in the warmth. Rukia, who came to kneel down beside the tub next to Ichigo, brought with her a bottle of shampoo that she rubbed onto its fur and began to clean out the tangles.

It was only a few more minutes before the kitten was clean and dried, and drifting off to sleep on a cushion in the living room. Ichigo and Rukia watched, well, Ichigo watched Rukia as she gazed at the little thing with a new found marvel.

"I'll go heat up a plate of milk for him for when he wakes up, in the meanwhile can you run another bath?"

Once again sitting on the lip of the tub as hot water filled its expanse, the brief interlude of light-heartedness that the kitten brought was gone, leaving her trying to recall what it was that she was thinking about earlier.

Ichigo came into the bathroom just in time as Rukia turned off the tap and a silence enveloped them as she took off her bathrobe and him peeled off his damp clothes. Like two children who grew up on a deserted island, the two had no embarrassment of their own or each other's nakedness. Unlike Rukia who soundlessly slipped into the folds of the hot water, leaving only ripples about her, Ichigo's tall frame made it inevitably awkward as water splashed around him over the tub's edge as he tried to find a comfortable position. After a few moments he finally did with Rukia on his lap and her waist gathered towards his. And she, naturally, turned slightly to lay one side of her head on his chest so that she could hear the beating of his heart underneath.

"_Gubijinso_," he saw a book with spots of water on its cover lying on a table beside the tub, "Natsume, good choice."

He was mildly bemused when Rukia began to devour the sizable, but dated library that came with the house. Ichigo wondered if it was an attempt on her part to begin her emotional education.

"It was all so senseless," she murmured after some thought, "even if they shared the same father, they could still have stayed together. Fujio should have gone away with Kono to China, no one would know that they are related there."

"But they couldn't live with it themselves. It was eating away at Kono, that he was in love with his half sister, the daughter of the woman who destroyed his father's legacy."

"Defeat evades from within."

"Could they have lived happily ever after though, even if they found a way to be together?"

"No, and that's how I understand why Fujio chose to die in the end, for someone who devoted so much into every feeling for Kono, death is the only fitting ending. It really _was_ the only way that Kono would never forget her, and that is all that can come out of an amoral love like theirs. If she had not died when Kono was leaving, and moved onto marrying another man, she could have killed herself like Hatsumi in _Norwegian Wood_. Because her pride would not allow her to be happy after Kono's abandonment."

"Even though Fujio said that she loved Kono, but I wonder if either of them had the chance to learn what love is. Kono's mother died young and Fuji's mother was a vicious woman, and with their father in Britain, I don't think what they felt for each other went beyond the simple possessiveness when a child says he loves a toy. Kono sacrifices Fujio for duty and in turn Fujio dies to punish him. Living onwards in spite of which, I think, is really what love is."

Realizing with a start that that was what he had done for the past fifteen years, Rukia looked up at his face and planted an apologetic kiss on his brow.

"I'm sorry."

Ichigo said nothing, only pulling Rukia into a tighter hold.

* * *

"Senbouzakura?"

"Shirayuki-hime, you finally woke up!"

Shirayuki barely tried to sit up and seeing a familiar figure kneeling by the door before a pounding pain in the back of her head made her fall back into her bed. All she could do was wait helplessly as she listened to Senbouzakura's footsteps run out the door to call for the healer and servants.

While cool cloths were wiped across her face and the healer held her pulse to check her condition, she fought to identify any clue from her shattered memories of why she came to be like this. With no success, she only hazily thought that it was peculiar that she was not in the mountains today training -

_Zangetsu._

Her eyes flew open and saw her father's gratified face hovering above her.

"Yuki, you are alright! And you defeated the hollow king," Her father squeezed her hand, "the snow is melting and the prophecy is true, you brought spring to us."

Shirayuki was still in too much of a daze to understand what her father was saying. But good sense told her to just stay quiet until the commotions have settled.

Only when the healers and servants have left with her father to give her time to rest, she could ask the only other person in the room, Senbouzakura her personal guard, how long she had been out.

"It's been ten days, we were all very worried, princess."

"Is that so," she paused to remember what her father had said, "can you open the window for some fresh air?"

"But your body is still not up to the cool air, the healer-"

"_Please_."

With some hesitation he pulled back a window pane and she barely make out the water drops that were dropping from the branches.

_The snow is melting, and spring is coming._

"Thank you, you can close it now."

"As you wish, princess."

Her heart fell as she understood that Zangetsu really was gone.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: It seems like I'm always apologizing for the long wait between updates, but it is true. I had been so caught up with work and etc that I had no time whatsoever until now. The 5-months long summer I have should mean that I get to update more frequently now. Thank you for all of your patience.

Please enjoy and leave your thoughts.

* * *

"So, Kisuke, what's my idiot son been up to these days? Last I heard he quit his job at the hospital and ran off somewhere."

"Ah well, I'd guess that he's rather preoccupied with Miss Kuchiki at the moment."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the telephone, but Isshin was never at a loss of words for long.

"I'm going to teach that boy a thing or two when I find him for not telling me that my third daughter is back."

"I'm surprised you have no doubt that it's the real Rukia." Urahara said with a chuckle.

"If nothing else, I trust Ichigo's judgement." There was a rare note of seriousness in Isshin's voice. "I've been trying to contact you for the past week, where were you?"

"You are not curious about her?"

"Well, I assume that it has something to do with where you went last week."

"Touché. I did take a trip to Soul Society last week, to pay a visit to Byakuya and get my hands on some information."

"How's my in-law?"

"Careful now, Isshin, cherry blossom season is over and I think we'd all like it to stay that way." Urahara remembered suddenly with a wince, "though I'm in no place to say, as somehow in the course of conversation I had to tell him about Rukia."

"Spill it, Kisuke."

"I went to see Byakuya because I caught wind that there was a break-in at the Kuchiki house sometime ago. I got his word that it was Ichimaru Gin, and the only thing that went missing was the remnants of Miss Kuchiki's zanpakuto."

"I must say I'm insulted that you've taken so long to inform me of this."

"I didn't think you want to be involved again after so long."

"Well, it's my third daughter we are talking about." A familiar note was creeping back into Isshin's voice, and evoking a laugh from Urahara.

"Of all people, Isshin, you leave me guessing more often than not."

"I'll pay you a visit tomorrow. Keep me updated in the meanwhile."

"Of course."

Isshin hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He turned off the desk lamp to watch the moonlight stream through the open window, and closed his eyes for a moment. Funny how alike the three of them really were, himself, Byakuya and Ichigo, all having fallen in love with someone they should not have and lost them in the end all the same. If he could give Ichigo any help, any at all, in avoiding the same fate this time around, he wished that he could.

Opening his eyes, Isshin saw his wife smiling at him from a chair across the room. From time to time, maybe it was out of the senility of old age, he would see Masaki coming to pay him a visit when the moon was at just the right place in the night sky.

"Is Ichigo in some kind of trouble?"

"He's learning how to protect the woman that he loves. Damn that kid for trying to show his old man up." Isshin said all the while with a weary smile on his lips.

Masaki stood up from her chair and knelt down beside him. Placing a hand over his cheek, she looked up and said:

"Ichigo is growing up to be like you, and she must be a very special woman."

"That she is. Without her, Ichigo wouldn't be here."

"You told me that she saved Ichigo and the twins once."

"Long before that, remember the day that Ichigo was born?"

"I remember there was a lot of commotion, you told me later it was a hollow attack?"

"I never told you that she was the shinigami who save us. My powers were sealed then, so I couldn't do anything. Years later when Ichigo brought her home, I recognized her at once."

"I'm sorry I never got the chance to thank her." Masaki exclaimed in her usual gentle manner with a smile.

"Leave that to Ichigo, I think he will do just fine." Isshin took a hold of his wife's hand on his face and felt the familiar warmth from them.

"He must love her very much."

"I'm worried that won't be enough. There are some things we can't win against, like how I never managed to protect you."

"But I managed to protect Ichigo, so he could fulfill his namesake. Trust our son." Isshin could feel her hand withdrawing from underneath his, as time must be running out. "I'm so happy that I met you, Isshin, and that we had our three children. So happy..."

Isshin watched as Masaki's form melted into a pearly strand that slowly became indistinguishable from the moonlight. He blinked a few times and stretched out his limbs before standing up from the chair.

_You are one lucky man, Isshin._

* * *

Ichigo did not know how to react when Rukia took up drawing again. On one hand, it was comforting that she was as bad at it as she ever was. But on the other hand, it was disconcerting just how bad at it she still was.

At the moment, he was sitting on the back porch watching her scribbling something with a pencil, sheets of "completed works" were scattered all about her. Chappy, which she insisted would be the kitten's name, was sitting across from her on the other side of the paper, staring intently at it. Ichigo decided that like himself, Chappy was trying to understand just what Rukia was drawing.

"Done."

Picking up Chappy from the ground, Ichigo sat down beside her to witness the newest piece. As soon as he saw it though, he had to admit that despite living fifteen more years, he was no better at controlling at twitch in the corner of his mouth.

"What's happening this time?" Ichigo was really trying hard to decipher the mass of lightning bolts and cat ears.

"Well, here," she pointed at a figure (as Ichigo really did not know what to call it) in a white dress, "Yuki is going far away to fight the monster that was living in the mountain. She had nothing but her trusty sword."

"This... is her sword then?" Ichigo pointed at something that resembled a mass of ribbons. _Did she remember something about Shirayuki?_

"Yep. So she went up the mountain and found the dark monster living there. He had long, wild hair and a big sword too. "

Ichigo smacked a hand to his forehead and asked the gods why. There was Zangetsu, looking more like a meat cleaver the way she had drawn it with zigzagged pencil etchings. And the person, if it could be so called, holding it bared an undeniable likeness to the Old Man, though Ichigo was not sure if it was an insult to him just by admitting that.

"But the monster was no match for Yuki's powers," and Rukia moved on the last instalment of the story, "so in the end she defeated him and saved her people." Judging by the last drawing, it looked like Old Man Zangetsu was conked over the head and fainted at Yuki's feet, who was being cheered by her people.

"Um, did you think this up all by yourself?" He tried to be gentle, really.

"Nope, Shirayuki told me this story a while ago."

"But was it necessarily to make them all look like Chappy? I mean-"

The next moment left Ichigo doubled over with the pain from a blow to his head. He was so surprised that for a moment he did not know what had just happened. Looking up, Rukia seemed just as shocked as he was that she just hit him.

"I-I'm, I'm so sorry!" Immediately she took his head in her hands to check if she did any lasting damage.

Ichigo laughed out loud all of a sudden, making Rukia even more panicked at what she just did. Sadly, he missed it, to have her knocking some sense into him. So he gathered her into his arms and held her still for a moment.

"Did I used to hit your too? Like this?" Her voice came in a whisper from against his neck.

"Yep, not only on my head, you liked slapping me and kicking me on the back too."

He could just imagine her face suddenly surged with blood, as she burrowed deeper into his hold in embarrassment.

"Welcome back, Rukia."

* * *

"Captain Kuchiki." Ukitake dropped his voice as the two men approached each other in the corridor, "I have some news."

"What is it?"

"I pulled some strings in Central Room 46 and Squad 12, and managed to get a channel open in Kurakara, the town in which Kurosaki Ichigo resided until a short while ago. As it turns out, something _was_ out of the ordinary. There have not been any reports from the shinigami stationed there for quite a few months now, and we have good reason to believe that it is because no one is actually there. However, there is no evidence of an increase in the number of hollow attacks either."

"You suspect there is a third party involved?"

"Not only that, screening of the news feed in the real world showed that since a few months ago there was a number of attacks on young girls, all of whom recovered with no memories of the incident. Obviously they do not appear to be hollow related, but the series of attacks came to an abrupt stop about the time that you said Urahara Kisuke came to visit you."

"And you wonder if it was no coincidence, that the attacks were somehow related to Rukia's reappearance." Byakuya's eyes widened imperceptibly.

"Yes. The entire affair is peculiar. It is not so much that the rules tightened, but rather that all these occurrences were hidden so well by those new rules."

"Someone is looking for Rukia and does not want anyone to know it."

"It looks that way, yes."

"How trustworthy is your connection in Central Room 46?"

"He was an old classmate of mine at the academy, I have known him a very long time. What are you planning?"

"The Kuchiki family has its own Sekaimon as privilege of being a noble house."

"I am afraid that my connection does not have enough power to get you the permission to open a Sekaimon to the real world." Ukitake seemed surprised at Byakuya's audacity in suggesting such a thing.

"I do not intend to obtain anyone's permission, as long as your connection does not betray our doings to anyone. I will go to the real world myself to retrieve Rukia."

"I see. If you need any assistance, Captain Ku- "

"No need, this is a private matter of the Kuchiki family. However, I am much obliged to your assistance."

* * *

Gin could never quite forget that he owe his life to a mere oversight.

He was still a child when it happened. The Ichimaru family was counted among the minor nobles, as his grandfather at the time was a member in the Central Room 46. Having lived his entire life in the quiet confines of the family house, it was more than understandable that Gin would have no idea what the sudden blast at the front gate would mean for himself and the rest of his life. He remembered that he was in his grandfather's study that morning, as always on the days where his grandfather was back from the office.

Unlike Gin, his grandfather was immediately alarmed by the far-off commotion and waved over one of his personal guards.

"Taneda, take Gin." With that, he knelt down to Gin's level and said, "stay where he takes you and do not move an inch. No matter what you hear or what you see, do _not _move or make a sound. I will come back for you when it's all over. Understand?"

Feeling that it was the only appropriate thing to do at the moment, frantically Gin nodded a few times and allowed himself to be taken by the shoulders by the man beside him. Before he could catch a last glimpse of his grandfather's figure, everything flashed out of sight as Taneda launched into _shunpo _with him in his arms.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Ichimaru-sama has instructed me to take you to the location in the event that this happens."

"What's the location? And what's happening?"

Perhaps realizing that he had said too much, Taneda remained silent the entire way despite Gin's inquiries. When the world materialized again, he found the two of them in a dark room with nothing but bare walls. Before he could ask, Taneda stood before a particular wall and drew out spells with his fingers as if doing kido. At its completion, a door surfaced into view and he was shoved into it.

"Remember Ichimaru-sama's instructions. The door is made of stone that absorbs _reiatsu_, so as long as you stay inside, they won't find you. I'll be back personally to get you when this is over. So do _not_ move for anything."

And at that, the door closed leaving him in total darkness.

How long had he stayed in there, believing that this was just a bizarre interlude and that normal life would resume in a short while? Long enough to realize that it was not. Curiosity and loyalty to his grandfather's instructions fought in him until he mustered up enough courage to push open the smallest crack, the creak thunderous in his ears. The first thing he thought was how lonely the air felt, without the bustle of –

Panic and horror seized his heart in an instant. Gin scrambled out of his hiding place into the room, trying in vain in keep his heart still as he sought the faintest trace of reiatsu in the air. He thought he felt something for an instant, but very soon emptiness came back as the only answer. A void that was frighteningly endless.

For the next few days, he scoured the house. But with every corner he turned, destruction and death met him with a menacing certainty. Only when every trace of strength left him and Gin collapsed in the middle of the courtyard, it became painfully clear that the Ichimaru house was no more.

The peculiarity with which the entire event transpired only occurred to him much later in life, years after he woke up to find himself in Rukongai and learned to survive like the wild dogs that wandered the streets. Thankfully he had spiritual power, being the only way out of this hell was to become a shinigami. But that was not why he wanted to go. One day, he followed the crowd on the street outside of his dwelling to find a train of shinigami's passing by. Gin was too short to have caught any of their faces, but what he did catch was a trace of the reiatsu of a dead man. He never forgot that last strand of reiatsu that brought him the tiny glimmer of hope on that fated day.

Come to think of it, he came to be where he was now just chasing it, chasing it in the hope that one day he will extinguish it with his own hands.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Ah, had writer's block for a month and finally came up with this.

In previous chapters I had mentioned the theme of the fine line between dream and reality. So I decided to give it more attention in this chapter, and as well as later on. Hope I managed to do so without too much confusion.

Please enjoy.

* * *

_Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi._

* * *

"Yuki."

"You haven't called me that in a while, Zakura."

Senbonzakura did not immediately reply. Instead, he held his breath as she began to turn her gaze away from outside the window to look at him, for the earth shattering moment that her profile came into view and the idea of "beauty" sparked into life in his mind.

"That's because you haven't been all here these days."

"Where could I have gone, the healer has confined me to bed rest all these days."

He smiled, more indulgently than perhaps he had realized, and sat down beside her.

"Well, it's anyone's guess. I have no duties today, so I'll be here all day."

Shirayuki let her shoulders drop and breathed in deeply, reacquainting herself with his presence.

"The house seems to always in a bustle these days, what's happening?"

"They are preparing for the crowning. The healer says you will be fully recovered in ten days. So you will be taking your father's place in twenty."

A hint of panic flashed across her eyes.

"Ah. Would it be insolent of me to wish my injuries were graver?"

"I would think that after defeating the hollow king, even you would have some faith in your right to the throne." The man cocked an eyebrow.

"Even you, Zakura? I would've thought that you, of all people, would keep a cool head amidst all of this."

"Was I wrong to think that if anything, defeating the hollow king alone is quite a feat?"

"You saw me when I was brought back, I didn't have a scratch on me. Did you think that I could have defeated Zangetsu that easily?"

Realizing all of a sudden that her tongue slipped, her hand flew to her mouth. Senbonzakura unexpectedly winced inwardly.

"Is that the hollow king's name?"

"Yes."

"What was he like?"

Shirayuki narrowed her eyes as if squinting to see into a distant moment in the past.

"He was... A wild man, utterly unbound by rules of any sort. He may be the only one who dared to fling me against a wall without so much as a blink. Escaping my name and blood was not as fun as I had thought."

Catching the hint of colour that flew upon her cheeks as she talked, he closed his eyes momentarily in order to keep his smile from faltering in the least.

"I would've liked to see him with my own eyes."

"I understood why my forefathers wanted to kill him so much. There exists not a place in this world for a man like him, arrogant beyond belief and without a care in the world. Zangetsu would have destroyed this world that they so carefully built out of dogma and lies. Do you know that none of the previous kings were killed, they really killed themselves after losing to him."

"Do you regret killing Zangetsu? What happened in the mountains?"

"I didn't kill him. I tried, but I knew he only let me stab him so it would seem like I succeeded and that no one would ask questions. He kept talking about something that he was meant to do, and the day that the hollows came was the day he had been waiting for. He knocked me unconscious and...just left. But he said that he'll be back one day so I can kill him. How can I accept the throne knowing that I didn't kill him and just carry on another lie like the kings before me?"

"It's hard to swallow, isn't it? That your people's sacrifice all this time living in this snow laden world really had nothing to do with the struggle of good over evil."

"You seem to take this rather easily." Shirayuki looked at him beside her. His eyes were as clear as they ever were, looking out the window, not the least bothered by what she had just told him.

"Because I fancy myself as my own man." Senbonzakura turned to her and smiled, it felt as if a cool draft had swept through the window.

She was speechless for a moment, the light from his smile dazzled her. When she recovered, she looked down and said with a chuckle.

"You two are really alike, you know."

* * *

Kuchiki Byakuya never thought that the day would come when the Omitsukido dared to raise their sword against him. But on the other hand, he did not expect the day to be without trouble. Keeping his eyes on the crowd of masked shinigami before him, Byakuya unconsciously took a few steps backward to be closer to the Senkaimon opening. If someone got to it before he did, it would all be over.

"Who sent you here?"

"Under the order of the Central Room 46, former Captain of the Thirteen Squads Kuchiki Byakuya is to be arrested and tried for committing high treason." Someone who seemed like the leader stood up and said, daring to look at Byakuya square in the face.

Naturally, Byakuya raised a brow the sheer display of disrespect. However as the word "former" slowly registered in his mind, he felt unexpectedly relieved. Without the title of captain also meant the absence of any restraints on his actions or motivations, so that he would be free to do as he pleased once Rukia was found. _If_ he gets out of this, that is.

The clash of reiatsu when both parties unsheathed their zanpakutos swallowed them instantly. Making the mistake of thinking that he could have taken care of the situation without even his shikai, Byakuya quickly found himself outnumbered by the enemy. The plume of dust that swirled about him made it impossible to see, the enemies gave themselves away only by the cage of reiatsu that was threatening to ensnare him. With a grit of his teeth, Byakuya decided that he had to get out onto clear ground whatever the cost, as waiting here for the enemy to strike first surely would mean death.

Trying to gather as much reiatsu around him as possible to shield himself from the blows, Byakuya shot upwards. But as soon as he left the ground, a whirlwind of blows and cuts met him, making it so that it took all he had to keep a steady stream of reiatsu at his feet and forge upwards. A scrapped captain still had his worth, he thought when finally a draft of cool air met his face as he emerged from the chaos below. The thought was cut short though, when the pain from his wounds suddenly screamed. Blood spatter from the countless cuts small and large, and he watched the brilliant display with a strange detachment as he was temporarily suspended in mid-air.

_How did the Omitsukido suddenly become so strong?_

Though Byakuya did not have much time to contemplate, as suddenly the pull of gravity grabbed him downwards to the earth. During his descend he also caught a glimpse of the dimming aura around the Kuchiki family Senkaimon.

_The passage is closing, _he thought with almost a gasp.

Commanding his right hand to reach for Senbonzakura's hilt, Byakuya pulled it out in time to stake a wobbly landing some ten meters away from the where he had just emerged. But as if they could read his mind, as soon as his foot touched down on the ground several black shadows shifted by the corner of his eyes. He knew that they were going to attack him from behind, as his speed was much decreased by the various wounds that covered his body and had no hope of releasing even his shikai in time to avoid a blow.

"_Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens_. Hado No.63 Sōren Sōkatsui!"

A large explosion went off behind him, and Byakuya whipped around to see Ukitake standing before a heap of smoking rubble.

"How embarrassing," Ukitake smiled good-naturedly as if unaware of the situation that they were in, "that a captain still needs to use an incantation."

"Captain Ukitake."

"Someone warned me that you might be in need of some help today around this time."

The two men found themselves standing back to back, surrounded by Omitsukido members. The air was congealing as the two parties contemplated each other, daring the other one to attack first. Eyeing the fading Senkaimon one last time, Byakuya gave out a low growl and stepped forward to meet the enemy.

"That someone should also have informed you that I have been stripped of my rank on the grounds of treason." With a step to his right, Byakuya dodged his aggressor's swing and swiped the edge of his blade against the man's neck.

"Well, I'd like to think that I have learned a lesson or two the last time a captain was stripped of his rank." Ukitake struck another one under the chin with his elbow and slammed the hilt of his zanpakuto into the back of his head.

"By helping me you have exposed yourself as my collaborator, Soul Society would not look kindly upon this." Another swing of his blade opened up a bloody chasm in a shinigami's chest, the spray of blood quickly seeped into the material of his Omitsukido uniform.

"I have decided to accompany you to the real world, to look into a few matters of my own. I understand you most likely would not need it, but I would like to volunteer my assistance in retrieving your sister, as she was a member of my squad after all." The white haired man took the pain to clear up a space in the direction of the Senkaimon, signalling that they should be making their way there.

Byakuya of course saw through such quaintly disguised display of concern, and secretly thanked Ukitake for it.

"Scatter, Senbonzakura."

The flurry of petals surged at the Omitsukido squad at a swipe of Byakuya's hand, ravaging them to pay back for the earlier attack. Even using his shikai, it was not an easy task getting them off of their tails. While Ukitake was ahead to clear the path of any interfering enemies, Byakuya was more than occupied by directing Senbonzakura's blades to stop those who were better versed in shunpo. The waning aura of the Senkaimon was coming into reach, and they could make it in time if it were not for these nuisances...

Suddenly the hilt of Senbonzakura quivered in his hand, as if answering his desperation.

_What is it, Senbonzakura? Do you hear my call? Fight by my side..._

The hilt glowed white hot in his palm, but Byakuya only held onto it tighter. There was a change in the sounds behind him, cries of pain filled the air and the tail of winds felt sharper on the cheek. Sheer curiosity made him turn his head around, and was met by the breath taking sight of pink petals filling the sky.

Like fireworks, they rose into the air and scattered to every direction, engulfing the enemy.

Like flower petals caught in a spring breeze, they flittered to the ground, but not before slitting men's throats with a cruel nonchalance.

Even Byakuya shuddered, the perfect marriage of beauty and death.

When he turned his head back around, the dim glow of the Senkaimon doors overtook him. It was a frantic moment stretched to an eternity, as he called back the ravaging blades of Senbonzakura and charging through as the doors closed on his heel. When the last ray of light was cut off, the welcoming darkness of the Dangai signalled that they were at last safe.

Immediately turning around to pierce through the doorway with his zanpakuto, Byakuya sealed the Senkaimon as the head of the Kuchiki household. Perhaps, he thought, so is my fate, if such a thing exists. But the thought was cut short when a sudden vertigo overtook him, as he realized with a start that his haori felt abnormally heavy, soaked with the blood from his wounds.

_Not now, I have to-_

Even Byakuya himself was not aware of the moment his consciousness went out like a flickering candle, as he fell from one impenetrable darkness into another.

* * *

With a sharp intake of breath, Byakuya's eyes shot open. The ceiling met his gaze, it was night by the looks of it.

It took a few moments to figure out where he was. He had a dream, dreaming of a battle and a dark place. The details evaporated as soon as he had woken from it, no matter how hard he dug his brain for them. Skin prickling as a cool draft swept by his ear, he turned to his right to see a woman's sleeping face.

_Hisana._

Finally a little more than awake, he realized that he was in bed with his wife beside him. They were in the Kuchiki family's estate, in their room. As always.

A shiver ran through him without warning, as apparently it was not only the dream that jolted him awake, but also the chill that was radiating off of Hisana. Unlike him, she did not seem the least bit bothered by the cold. Byakuya flipped on to his side and reached over to trace the lines of her face, feeling that he needed to be reacquainted.

_My little flower._

"Byakuya-sama?" Despite his efforts to be gentle, she still woke up after a few fluttering of the eyelids.

Byakuya did not answer. He watched her sleepy eyes search his face in the dark, not yet lucid enough to understand what was happening. Enjoying the attention to the full, he wrapped his arms around her and held on tightly.

_I was somewhere without you just now._

Hisana gave a little gasp, but quickly recovered. She understood her husband far too well to ask what was wrong, so she encircled her arms around his back and patted lightly, as if soothing a child. With the other hand, she ran along the entire length of his back, tracing the protrusions of his spine. Only at a time like his, the head of the Kuchiki family would show the inkling of weariness.

"Were you having a dream?" Her husband's muffled voice came from above her.

"How did you know?"

"I am your husband."

Hisana blushed in the dark, and burrowed her head deeper into his chest.

"I was in a cold place, everything was covered in snow and ice. White was all I could see. Someone was calling to me, it sounded like a girl's voice, but I could not see where she was. I was wandering around the land looking for her, and that was when I woke up."

Byakuya furrowed his brows. Could it be...? He knew the day when he found her fainted with hunger on the streets of Rukongai that she must had spiritual powers. But no, he pushed the thought away, as he could not reconcile the thought of Hisana as a shinigami with a zanpakuto in her hands.

"Is this the first time that you have this dream?"

"No, I have been having it for years now. Pieces at first, but they got longer as time went on."

"Have you ever thought that you might have... spiritual powers?"

"I... have never thought about it. It is why I was always hungry in Rukongai, and had to abandon Rukia. Is it not?"

Byakuya knew that he had touched a sore spot, as the voice again his chest dwindled.

"Tomorrow I have no duties in the office, so I will accompany you to Rukongai to look for her." He knew that no matter how much love he showered Hisana with, the guilt of abandoning her sister would always stand between her and happiness.

At his words, Hisana raised her head from his chest and the happiness in her eyes was sparkling even in the dark. She withdrew her arms from behind him, to hold his face in her two hands. Methodically, she first printed her lips against his dark brows, then the deep alcove of his eyes, and down the bridge of his nose.

_I want to adore you, the you who love me so._

Strands of his hair fell against her cheek as she kissed him. Even as a child, as the young master of the Kuchiki family he was never coddled. But he was not the least embarrassed to be enjoying such ministrations at his age, as there was not the least bit of condescension in her movements, only the desire to treasure something precious to her.

_Hisana, I dare not to breath, as I am afraid that this is all just a dream and that a breath too sharp would jar me awake._

_Hisana._

_

* * *

_

Rukia sighed at the spilled tea cup beside her, watching the contents steam on the floor.

Something felt wrong. For days now a wordless worry hung in the back of her mind, clouding her judgement. Walking into doors, breaking plates, her body was slipping out of her control. Tonight, finding herself unable to sleep, she got up to sit on the back porch.

A summer night always seemed promiscuous, the mystique of warm air and a full moon beckoned possibilities too fantastical for the light of day. The darkness was made intimate by the murmurs of creatures unseen, inviting her to a land of dream songs and phantoms.

Looking back at Ichigo's sleeping face, Rukia quietly leapt off of the back porch and ventured out the door. Finding the streets abandoned, she followed the hazy orange glows of the streetlamps.

The days were too peaceful for too long. Where was Gin?

Her heart began to race as her thoughts ran, considering each possibility. They knew where she was, yet they have not made a move yet. Crouching in the dark waiting, letting her have a taste of freedom and then when she least expected it, drag her back into the depth of hell. Then should she leave on her own accord, before the poison that was Ichigo's warmth completely seeped into her bones and destroy her?

Either way, her end was clear. But at least she could limit the number of casualties.

Steeling her resolve with every step, Rukia lost count of how many steps it took to convince herself. Wondering if she should turn back before Ichigo found her missing, she looked up from her feet to see where she was. Her gaze fell upon three strangely clad men some five meters ahead of her. One man was supporting another unconscious one on his shoulders, and the third man in a green kimono spotted her at once.

"Ah, you joined us just in time, Miss Rukia."


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Major, major writer's block since the last update, I apologize again. I thank everyone for the support you've given me in the reviews in the past chapters, and hope you will enjoy this one.

Mature material ahead.

* * *

"Ah! What luck running into you, Kurosaki-kun."

What a night it proved to be for Ichigo, waken up by the door bell in the dead of the night, finding Rukia not beside him but instead at his door step in the company of three men that he never thought he would see standing together. Quite naturally, Ichigo extended an arm around Rukia's shoulders and pulled her to his side, where she explained sheepishly that these men claimed to be acquaintances of his and thus brought them here.

"Kurosaki-kun, I apologize for imposing upon you like so, but as you can see," Ukitake smiled good-naturedly and gave a sideways glance to the man supported on his shoulders, "we are in a bit of a predicament."

Almost embarrassed by Ukitake's charm, Ichigo heard himself give a startled "yes" and allowed them into through the door. Mentally kicking himself once he came to, he closed the door behind him and turned to Rukia.

"What happened?"

Hardly the question he wanted to ask.

"I went out for a walk, I couldn't sleep." Rukia looked like a child in trouble, her head hanging almost to her chest. "Should I have not brought them here?"

"I don't see anything could have stopped them."

"They seem to know who I am."

Seeing that he could not evade the question anymore, he looked away and sighed.

"You used to know who they are too. He's your brother."

Rukia figured that he was talking about the man who seemed so foreboding even when unconscious. She wanted to react to the news, but a glimpse at Ichigo's face in the shadows made her pause. His tightly set jaw was shaking with each careful flare of his nostrils, obviously trying hard to feign calm as he controlled each breath. With a hand placed on his chest, she could feel the crazed rhythm pass through the warm fabric of his shirt and infect her own heart.

She could have no way of knowing what he was afraid of, or even that he was excessively scared of something. With a startling clarity, like seeing what is to come the instant before falling off a bike, Ichigo thought that he could see a single loose string being pulled out of the life that he had so carefully woven, painstakingly slow. But he was too horrified to look away, afraid that that he would miss each grisly detail.

"Kurosaki-san!"

Both looked up when Urahara's voice, far too happy for the occasion, rang from the living room. Rukia's head turned too quickly to see Ichigo's eyes on her, his lips pressed into a thin line.

So there he was, watching her disappear through the threshold between the dark hallway and the brightly lit living room.

Inch.

By.

Inch.

* * *

When Rukia walked into the living room, she saw that the two men had already settled the unconscious one onto the tatami floor. With their hands held out above his body, she could see with a start that his wounds were slowly disappearing in the bluish aura that enveloped him. However, apparently _that_ was nothing shocking compared to her appearance.

The silver haired man was the first to notice her.

"Unbelievable."

He muttered as his eyes combed her face blatantly, looking for any blemish that might expose her as an imitator. Though his stare was not malicious, and Rukia found herself giving him a sheepish smile as she knelt down across from the two men.

"Is there anything for me to do?"

Urahara looked up with a curious quirk of his lips.

"Do you know who he is?"

"My brother, Ichigo said."

"Do _you_ think he is your brother?"

Rukia paused for a moment, and gave her head a few cautious shakes. Urahara sat back onto his heels and looked at her with a sigh.

_Byakuya, it seems like you weren't given enough time after all._

"But he _is_."

Rukia looked at the man's sleeping face. He was a good-looking man, even much more so than Ichigo. Unfurled in the dark countries of sleep, the unguarded expression was utterly at odds with the sharp lines of his features, making her wonder if she was witnessing a rare sight. She was almost ashamed at her curiosity, wondering tentatively who this man was to her and what he had thought of her. Each progression of her thought felt like a betrayal to Ichigo, knowing how much he wanted to run forward and never look back.

"Nii-san."

Unable to resist, she tried on the words and every sentiment that came with it for size, her tongue stumbling over them. Urahara and Ukitake shared an amused glance, wondering what Byakuya would think upon hearing it. Ukitake could tell that, since Rukia's near execution, Byakuya had been trying to make up for the fifty odd years that had been lost between them. In his own clumsy way, Byakuya treaded the fine line between giving Rukia the affection that she deserved as his sister and nursing the old wound Hisana had left behind. However, the final battle had come sooner than anyone had expected, or rather, Byakuya's realization had come too late.

Time to restart this ridiculous game of chance and fate that we are all in, and hope for a better hand this time around.

Reset.

* * *

When Ichigo entered the room, he could feel his stomach wrenching into a knot at the sight of Rukia by Byakuya's side.

"Rukia."

He lamely called, as if just getting her attention would stop her from drifting further into her past, away from him. When she turned around at the sound of his voice, he met a vague glance that did not recognize him at all. Boyish jealousy had left no room for subtlety, so he snatched over Rukia's hand and pulled her over to the far side of the low table. Sitting down beside her, he gave a purposeful glance at their present company, mostly at the unconscious Byakuya, to make clear of where Rukia's rightful place was to be.

"There's no need for Captain Ukitake and I to be subjected to this. But when Captain Kuchiki comes to, you will have to be much more persuasive than this."

"Is Byakuya here for Rukia?" Ichigo shot at Urahara, his tone needlessly rigid to recover from his earlier display of rashness.

"That was what Captain Kuchiki had originally intended, but we were ambushed just before stepping through the Senkaimon." Ukitake interjected, but Ichigo made no notice of him, keeping his eyes on Urahara.

"How did he know where Rukia is?"

A dangerous air was now emanating from Ichigo, unaware of the hand that Rukia placed on his lap underneath the table. Urahara wondered how much worse things can look for him.

"I believe that Miss Kuchiki is in enough danger that you alone cannot protect her. There is also something bigger that's going on in the inner folds of Soul Society that I thought Captains Kuchiki and Ukitake needed to be aware of. Judging from the attack on them today, I think my decision was justified."

Urahara's grave tone lent some gravity to the situation, and found everyone in the room sinking into a silence. Rukia found it a strange scene, to have so many people that she had never met before go to such lengths for her safety. While being only a pawn, she had no idea of the purpose of the assignments that Gin had sent her to do, but hazily wondered if it were all connected somehow. If that in fact was the case, then they were the ones more in need of protection, seeing that she was the only unscathed piece on the chess board.

Dramatic irony at its best.

"I know _we_ are eager to find out the truth behind all this," Urahara gave a sly emphasis on the word meant for Ichigo, "but we each have a piece to the story, and Captain Kuchiki's is rather important. So let's continue this tomorrow, when he has come to."

The sleeping arrangements proved to be an unexpected hassle as scouring for extra futons and pillows in a house of two was near impossible. The rare bustle made everyone forget that really this was a house of exiles, each due to some circumstances held in limbo here. But as the first faint light of dawn tinged the eastern sky, sleep began to envelop the house.

When Ichigo had finally finished cleaning up the havoc, he walked sheepishly into his bedroom with Rukia, feeling oddly ill at ease knowing that Byakuya, albeit unconscious, was just down the hall. To his surprise Rukia was nowhere to be found, but it occurred to him where she may be.

"Rukia."

Ichigo called to her back, which was settled beside Byakuya's sleeping figure, but nothing came out. His teenage self could never have realized the countless ways that her name could sound on his tongue. Ecstatically, sleepily, wearily, gruffly. Each form that her name took on his tongue was one form of her that he possessed, but what was there to call when she was slipping away from him?

Before Rukia could reply, he wrenched her by the shoulders to bring her face to face with him. His heart quivered when he saw a film of moisture over her eyes.

Ichigo's arm dropped.

"I should leave."

"What are you saying?" Even though he had a very good idea what she was talking about. But if he could stall her answer, stall the inevitable end.

"I should lea-"

Her words were cut short by Ichigo's mouth that sealed hers.

The familiarity of the situation suddenly reminded Ichigo that he had made such a last-ditch effort to make her stay once before.

It was a day or two before the final battle. He woke to the sight of a coldly brilliant moon above him. Taking some time to realize that it was night, he looked around to find himself in a temporary shelter built for the wounded, and Rukia by his bed side. She was busy with a wet cloth in her hand cleaning his wounds, the basin of water by her side was already an impenetrable red. Both of them were silent as she bandaged him, the only exchange between them was the heat from his body and the chill from her fingers when they made contact. She did the task with absolute concentration, her eyes as if capable of boring a hold through the cloth that unravelled round after round to cover the entirety of his torso.

When Rukia was finished, she helped him to sit up and fed him some water. As he drank, he studied her under the moonlight. Drops of sweat rolling down her cheek cut streaks of white through the blood and grime that covered them, then down the fragile curve of her neck. It reminded him of a hell butterfly that he saw earlier, its wings ripped to shreds by the edge of a blade in battle. Soundlessly, it was carried away by the wind.

Before settling the empty bowl down, she paused for a moment to stare at his chest that was rising and falling with each strained breath. Ichigo could feel his heart and breath quicken under her gaze, but tried hard to feign calm by breathing through clenched teeth. Who knows how long this went on, he only knew that when he was feeling faint from the lack of air, all reason left him and he lunged forward to catch her lips in his.

He ravaged her mouth, his inexperience and blood fever made him delve his tongue deep within the cavity of her mouth and entwining her tongue with his, tasting with a surprise the salt of the tear that she must have been shedding. Desperately clutching her to him, his lips and tongue moved at such force and speed that he never gave her a chance to reject him, afraid that she would push him away at the slightest pause.

But push him away she did, with a slap on the face too. For a moment all that filled the dead night air was the sound of their rough breaths, greedily devouring what had been denied to them. Dread was beginning to fill him, as he saw that Rukia was standing up and thought that she was going to leave. Instead, she sat down on the edge of the bed and brought him into her arms, his head safely cradled in her chest.

"I know you are afraid." Her voice came in a whisper, "I am too. There will be lives sacrificed, but it will not be yours. You are strong, you will live to go back to your family and friends. You will live to forget all of this."

Ichigo wanted to explain, that his only fear was her disappearing right there and then, but the darkness was beginning to ensnare his consciousness and pulling him away from her voice. Realizing with a start that she must have drugged him, he grabbed futilely at her warmth before sinking into the dark country.

Rising out of the memory again, Ichigo found himself back in his bedroom, and continuing the kiss with Rukia who was pressed beneath him on the floor. Nostrils flaring as air moved through them roughly, he covered the entirety of her body with his, its topography too much for his crazed mind to digest but enough to fuel his erection to painful proportions. Rukia was more than surprised, as Ichigo had normally been a silent man in bed, whose sighs and grunts were ample to convey to her the painful pleasure that they both embroiled in. Pushing her skirt up to her stomach and resting between her things, he ground his erection into her with a vengeance, satisfied with the quiver that caught her throat.

Sitting up for a moment, he first stripped of his cloth in a frenzy and then began to attack hers, his speed suggesting that he neither needed nor wanted her participation in the matter. His sole purpose tonight was to possess, for her to cry under his ministrations, to see that she was his. Body and soul. But for the time being he was satisfied with the former. Pressing her bent knees down to the floor to open her up to him, he nudged the head of his penis into her opening and moved to above, supporting his weight by his arms at her ears. Slowly but firmly, he sank his hips into hers and moved into her warmth. Her body arched into his and gave a long whimper, feeling dizzied by the sheer sensation of him stretching her, filling her.

"Tell me Rukia, how can I make you stay? How can I make you love me, love me so much that you will never leave me?"

Ichigo said as he peered into her eyes, forcing them to look into his. As he held her in mid-air with anticipation of his next move, he enjoyed the changing currents in her eyes, from the rapid currents of panic as he undressed her to the dark murky depth now as she wiggled uneasily, begging him to start moving. A roguish smile spread his lips as he slowly pulled his penis out completely, and suddenly thrust it back into her up to the hilt. Seemingly unfazed, he repeated the motions indefinitely to catalogue the full array of colours and shadows that appeared on her face, fulfilling his adolescent fantasy.

_I'm all the way inside Kuchiki Rukia._

Tired of the delicious torture, her hand slid up his arms and squeezed the firmness underneath, wanting to tempt him to share her delirium. But Ichigo was not so easily distracted, as he reached down to push her thighs against her chest and laid his full weight onto her. This time, as he slid into her, she felt that his length must be inhuman, reaching an impossibly deep place within. When it went in deep enough, the world exploded.

It must have hurt how tightly her insides squeezed him, as her legs gathered around his neck and held on for dear life. Ichigo counted the number of times she called his name, fifteen, in order to stave off his own orgasm. They collapsed against each other for some time, unwilling to part even when the force of her climax subsided. Noting that with some satisfaction, he flipped onto his back so that Rukia could be resting on his chest.

Watching the shimmering dawn outside the window, Ichigo found he could breathe a little easier. When he was five years old, he had almost drowned in the sea where the family was vacationing. He was playing in the shallow waters with his father nearby, but a sudden wave plunged him into the depth of the sea and began to carry him further from the beach. Filled with fear, he tried to grab onto anything, but his fingertips only swept against his father's for a moment, not long enough for him to grab onto him. Despite the fact that his father managed to pull him out of the water moments later, the fear of that miss made him terrified of water for years after that. The cure only came when after his mother passed away and he had to take the twins to the pool, he managed to grab onto Yuzu's arm when her hand slipped on the float board and the current of people carried her to the deep end of the pool.

Redemption had finally come, for letting her slip out of his grasp fifteen years ago.

While he was deep in thought, Rukia had gotten up to sit on his hips, watching his face in the pale light of dawn. It had been easier for her to leave, hiding under the façade of self-sacrifice. But Ichigo was right that day in the bath, that it was much more difficult to walk down this road with him, alive and fighting.

"I won't let go this time."

She said, rousing Ichigo from his memories. Realizing what she had said, a smile bent his lips, earth shattering amidst the lights and shadows of twilight.

He was still hard inside her, so she began to move on top of him, carefully enveloping his length to feel every inch of it inside her. Ichigo made a move to get up and kiss her, but she pushed him back onto the floor, watching with some amusement his face flushing over as he remembered what he had done just moments ago.

Unhurried, she rose and fell, watching and feeling the pleasure within him mount. Feeling his hips jerking upwards in desperate attempts to get her to speed up, she laid a hand on his cheek to open his eyes and look at her. From her expression, he was to understand that the end was to come as a sweet inevitability, when everything ceased to exist except her warmth.

As he came, Rukia watched his chin jerk upwards and his features came into the first light of the day, beautiful in the world of a new day.


End file.
