Work Text:
*
After, she sits with Isshin in the kitchen of the family home, a hand around her teacup. Isshin’s eyes are dry and red.
“This isn’t how this was supposed to happen,” he says at last. It’s the quietest, the most raw she’s ever heard him.
Rukia drops a hand to her belly. Her fingers tremble.
“No,” she says at last. Upstairs, her son sleeps, unaware and easily. She envies it of him.
Outside, it still snows, and they are alone.
*
Ichigo says it over and over, before it all starts.
“They should kill him,” he mutters, inside Soul Society, outside, in the privacy of their own apartment and at Karin’s soccer matches. “He’s just waiting there, in the fucking basement –“
“It’s not a basement, Ichigo,” she always says –
“They should kill him,” he always replies, shaking his head. She can’t do anything but silence him, by fist or blade or mouth. Still, the thought lingers.
She knows – she knows deep down that he is right. He sees much more than anyone has ever thought, outside of the politics and the hierarchy of Soul Society, and he has fought the Aizen that lingers in the cells. The Cross Seal will only hold for so long. Aizen is stripped of some but not all power, and she knows that Ichigo is right.
They try to forget – or she does, at least. There are rings and apartments and moving between the real world and Soul Society, of kings and statements and official celebrations of marriages and the Kuchiki family parties. It’s quiet, except when it’s not; they’re busy, except when they’re not.
Always, though – always, in the darkness of whatever room they find themselves in, she lies awake with his arm around her waist and watches the shadows change and shift across the floors and ceilings and thinks, thinks of what will be and what is, what still is to come. It leaves a sour taste in her mouth, more than any other time in her life.
*
“Stop,” he murmurs to her one night, in the snow silence of their bedroom. Outside, cars roll silently through the night; she thinks she can taste the snow as it falls against concrete streets and trees.
“Stop what?” she says at last, staring into the shadowed room. She can see the crease of their closet door, open just a crack. There’s something nostalgic to it all, to every moment – like she’s remembering it all before she can have a chance to forget, to miss it.
His mouth curves at her throat. “Thinking so loud.”
“One of us should,” she murmurs, stretching back against him.
She feels the dig and press of his fingertips into her hip. The secrets are coming out now; Ichigo goes to speak to her brother tomorrow, an official declaration of whatever the rings that have lived around their throats and on their hands for months symbolize. There will be a celebration, a fight on her part for her seat and her continued blade (marriage is not looked upon well for seated females, apparently – the hypocrisy isn’t strange to her, even as Ichigo sputters and froths at the mouth) – and still, all she can worry of is the threats unknown and unseen and unpredictable.
Everything is too quiet for its own good.
There’s a stirring there in the air, in the breaths she takes as he bites at her bare shoulder. There’s something else coming for them – she can taste it between them, in his mouth, in the tea she makes in the mornings.
“You’re the one obsessing about it, idiot,” she murmurs at last, as she curls into a comma in the sheets.
“Not at night,” he says, low in her ear. His hand slides under her thin shirt, to bare cool skin at her lower belly. “Who’s the idiot now?”
“Still you,” she snaps back, eyes too wide open.
His smile is short and slight against her neck. “Yeah. Okay.”
She swallows and covers the hand on her belly with one of hers. “Okay,” she murmurs.
They lay there, awake and too aware. She feels it rushing towards them, a sharp pinprick of anticipation.
Later, she feels the slow inhale of his breath against her skin.
“We will never leave you,” he breathes out, almost too low to hear.
The we leaves her skittered, strange; she flushes even as he slips into sleep, slow and even behind at her back.
What we? she wants to ask, but forgets by morning. Or, she doesn’t truly wish to know at all.
*
It all happens more slowly than she imagines.
Their marriage is celebrated, written into the Kuchiki family book; Ichigo goes to university for a term, then is in Soul Society for three months. She moves in-between the world of the living and Soul Society, fulfilling her duties as a lieutenant (more of a captain now, with Ukitake’s illness progressing) – and there are troubles, few and far-between.
Still, she dreams of blood-stained snow, and loss.
Ichigo is shifting into something else, something beyond the boy she knew. She knows it’s coming, she knows what it is – the many disparate souls that reside in just him – he is the face of it, the heart, and she still knows that much. When his eyes are too gold and his mouth a snarl of a smile in battle, she still knows who he is; as long as that doesn’t change, she knows they will be fine.
Aizen is moved out of the jail cells – to where, she does not know, and no one does. Ichigo does, of course – he was a part of the select group to move him. But he keeps the secret close to his chest, his mouth a thin line every time she mentions it.
She thinks he is becoming one of them, those captains who know and have plans, who have their machinations. She isn’t sure how she feels about it, after all.
*
When he comes back, after a month’s absence from Karakura Town and their apartment, she is at the Kurosaki Clinic. There are weekly checkups with Isshin now, as the – she doesn’t know if she can call it a baby, really; she knows what it is but it’s all still so foreign, a strange taste in her mouth – the baby grows. She feels it the moment he reenters the atmosphere, a calling out to her.
Her fingers flinch against her chipped tea cup. “Kurosaki-san – “
“Yes, I feel it too,” Isshin says cheerily. “And it’s Daddy-chan, Rukia!”
She feels the flush growing on her throat. Snow is heavy in the air, the anticipation of it growing in her bones. “I’m sorry – “
“Maa, maa, you must go, of course. He will want to see you, his beautiful wife! See how you’ve grown!”
Rukia rises. She feels it now, in this seventh month – there is a cumbersome aspect to her body, unfamiliar and weighty. Her fingers tug on her jacket, the leather cool under her fingertips. Even if it will not button, she will not forgo it. “I will bring him for dinner, perhaps tomorrow night.”
“Ah, yes! Yuzu and Karin will love that.” Isshin fixes a cool sort of gaze on her, a sharp contrast to his usual grin. “You are watching him, aren’t you?”
She blinks, tugging at the hem of her jacket. “Watching him?”
Isshin shrugs, face darkening. “He is – he is meant for much more than this clinic and their machinations. He needs to accept it, Rukia.”
“He will. He is. He will,” she says hurriedly, mouth dry.
“But he cannot be what they want to mold him into,” he says, too slow, too steady. This is uncharted territory; they speak, have spoken many times over the course of time and years – but this, this is beyond either of their controls. And yet – here they are.
“He needs to be careful, my son. He is – he is all too happy to throw himself into anything, if he thinks it will help,” Isshin continues.
Rukia swallows hard and reaches for her bag. “I know,” she says. The back of her neck prickles, the hair rising.
Nodding, Isshin sips his tea. The lightness returns to his eyes. “Of course you do! You are the smart one, I know – my boy would be nowhere without you,” he says with a grin.
Still, his words linger, even as she says goodbye and makes her way out the door and into the cold winter streets. The baby will be born in winter; this pleases her.
The apartment is quiet when Rukia walks in. Her key in the lock is the only sound.
Silently, she moves into the kitchen, and there he is – he sits at the island, staring out towards the small living room, out through the icy windowpanes.
“Well, well,” she says at last, dropping her bag on the counter.
Ichigo’s gaze flickers to her, and widens. “Fuck, look at– “
“Don’t say it,” she says shortly, shrugging her jacket off. In the back of her mind, Shirayuki laughs.
He grins. “So that’s where all the ice cream went.”
“Again, I said don’t,” she says, walking over to him. He is pale in the weak afternoon light, too pale. There is a new scar at his jaw, still pink and healing. “Hi there,” she adds absently.
In response, his arm curls around the small of her back and he pulls her into his side, leaning in. She tips her head back just slightly, taking the kiss from his mouth. Weariness permeates the air, the energy around them, weariness and – fear.
She stops, her mouth brushing his. “What’s wrong?” she murmurs, pulling tendrils of his fear like threads through her fingertips as she slides her hands over his sides.
One of his broad hands falls to her belly as it presses against his waist. She frowns against his mouth as he shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“You’re an idiot,” she says, shifting back from him.
“Rukia –“ he murmurs, as his hand shifts to her hip.
“I can feel it, you moron. What happened?” she asks, too sharply. Isshin’s words are heavy in her ears.
Ichigo’s fingers curl into her hip. He looks past her, into the shifting shadows and sunlight of their living room. His eyes are darkening, edged with gold – his hand bites into her hip, but she doesn’t mind.
“It was Aizen. We had to move him again,” he says at last.
“And?” she asks after a moment, the tips of her fingers cold.
He shakes his head, too pale and too quiet – it is fury she sees now, a threat manifested. She shivers as she watches his face shift and change, watches his mouth curl and thin. He is a frightening picture, when he wants to be – she has never doubted his ferocity and his heart, but here, in the gentle evenness of their own kitchen, it is startling.
“He knows you’re pregnant,” he says at last, voice clipped and low.
Rukia’s hand falls to her stomach, a strangely natural instinct. “A lot of people know by now,” she says softly.
“No – he’s in isolation – he sees no one – he shouldn’t know. He shouldn’t, and he does,” Ichigo says, flat and even.
Rukia meets his gaze, steady and unmoving. “What does that mean, then?”
Ichigo swallows visibly, and pulls her in closer, just enough – her belly shifts and presses against his waist, his palm warm on the small of her back. “It means he’s becoming powerful again,” he says, just as she expected him to.
“And what will you do about it?”
“Nothing. The old man won’t let me,” he mutters.
“Since when has that stopped you?” she retorts sharply.
Ichigo glares at her, his hand rubbing small circles there on her back. “It’s different now. You know it is.”
Yes, yes, because his name is in an official Kuchiki history, and he is going to be the king of captains and there are rings on their fingers and a baby – it is different now.
Still, she thinks of Isshin’s words, and tastes bitterness.
“If he can get out, he will come for you,” she says after a moment, steady and unchanging. She reaches out and frames her palm to his jaw, her fingers cool against his warm skin. “You can’t – you can’t let that happen.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he says, eyes dark-amber on hers.
“I can take care of myself,” she murmurs.
He rolls his eyes, still leaning into her palm. “That doesn’t mean I’m still not worried.”
“Clever,” she says, suddenly weary. “So what is there to do?”
Ichigo shrugs, and turns his mouth to the palm of her hand, his lips trailing lightly over the thin skin of her wrist. She can feel the tension settling in his bones, unerring and sharp. Her mouth curls as his tongue touches her bare skin.
“He’s secure, for now,” he says, and it feels so bitter, so wrong in her ears. “We’re monitoring him.”
“Productive,” she drawls.
His hand slides up and down her spine. “Rukia.”
“Since when do you follow orders?” she snaps. “This – this isn’t you, acquiescing to the captains like this.”
“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” he retorts dryly.
Her hand drops from his face. “Ichigo,” she says after a horrible moment of silence, her mouth set in a hard thin line. “Ichigo, you know – “
“Yeah,” he mutters, cutting her off. His hand flattens between her shoulder blades, fingers digging into the knots there. “Sorry. I know.”
Rukia stands there, too close in his embrace and still too far by half, and looks past his shoulder towards the kitchen cabinets. There is a hard lump in her throat she cannot swallow down.
“I’ve always wanted you to be safe,” she says after a long moment. She thinks she can feel the air in the room begin to cool, the taste of ice heavy on her tongue. “I wanted you to live –“
“I know,” he murmurs, eyes very dark on hers.
“But you are you,” she continues. “I would never – I want you to fight them if that’s what you think is right. I’ll help – I want you to kill him, if you think you should,” she says, all bluntness and hard edges.
His gaze fixes on hers. “Rukia –“
“Nothing is black and white any longer,” she says, even as he leans in towards her. His mouth is breaths away from hers. “Mercy is for children.”
“And those without children?” he murmurs, mouth brushing hers.
Her cheeks flush; the color spreads from her throat and down. “Maybe,” she says, as one of his hands curves her belly.
His thumb presses gently at the apex of her belly. She bites the inside of her lip.
“Do you know what it is?” he asks after a moment, voice very low.
She leans her brow to his, watching the trail of his hand over her stomach. She does – she has known for months now, the energy easy to pick out. The knowledge has eased things somewhat, in her worries and her concerns over motherhood, that kind of reliance; she has always been able to handle little boys.
“Do you?” she drawls, because if she knows, there’s no chance that Ichigo doesn’t.
He scowls a little, eyes narrowing. “I would act surprised, if you wanted me to.”
Sighing, she tips her mouth up to kiss him. “You’re an idiot. Hopefully he won’t inherit that.”
“That’s mean,” he says with a low laugh, but his hand is steady and gentle on the swell. He is waiting for a kick, she realizes abruptly. She feels sad and pleased at the same time, a strange confluence of emotion.
“He’s very strong, though,” Rukia says after a moment. “Your dad is excited.”
Ichigo chokes back a laugh. “Fuck, don’t remind me.”
“I told him we’d come to dinner,” she says, to hide the thickening of her voice. There’s a strange sort of burn behind her eyes. Her fingers curve into his shirt collar. “He misses you. He worries.”
“I know, I know,” he mutters. His mouth skips along her jaw.
A flush is waiting at her throat; she can feel it. Swallowing hard, she smoothes her hands across his chest. “I missed you too,” she says, too hurriedly.
Ichigo touches the fall of her hair against her cheek and throat. His other hand remains on her belly. When she meets his eyes they are very dark, and all him. “Yeah,” he says, a little too rough. “Me too.”
She shakes her head and leans into kiss him, harder this time. Her teeth sink into his lip and there – there is the gasp and press of his mouth, his tongue a slick slide against hers. She edges closer, the edge of the island pressing into the small of her back. Her eyes fall shut as he breathes her name, a slow pool of warmth gathering throughout her limbs.
Then, she feels the shift in her belly – and there, there is the kick he lingered for.
Ichigo smiles against her mouth, and she keeps it, swallows it down to remember.
*
Their son is born at the end of winter, during the last snow of the season. She wakes in the middle of the night to a humming in the back of her mind and a pull at the small of her back. Ice is in the air, and she knows it is time.
Ichigo is at her side the whole time, joking and laughing and smoothing her hair from her brow even as she squeezes his hand tightly with each pull and cramp of her muscles, the regular pains of labor. It hurts just as much as they warn her; Rukia has felt worse. She has been to Hell, after all.
A day later, she is at home again. The baby – Aki; she and Ichigo decided on a name with a fresh start and no shadows and ghosts – sleeps in the bassinet now in their bedroom. The nursery is ready, but she wants him close at the beginning, and Ichigo agrees. Rukia sits up in her own bed, idle and restless in the face of forced recuperation. She is a fast healer, but the stretch and burn of muscles and limbs remains. The room is full of flowers and well-wishes, as is the rest of the apartment. The smell lingers on her hair and in her nose; it makes her think of their wedding, the cherry blossoms in her brother’s gardens.
Aki stirs in his sleep, makes a soft sound. Rukia hears the creak of the front door, listens absently as Ichigo speaks in low murmurs and tones. She thinks she smells more flowers, and it’s exhausting to think of talking to one more person, even if it is someone she likes. She has seen her brother, and Isshin, Yuzu and Karin, Orihime, Nanao – she is exhausted by the attention. Right now, she wants time for just the three of them. She needs the adjustment, the frightening aspects of motherhood and care beginning to take a grip on her senses.
Outside, the sun reflects brightly against the fresh snow. She can feel the transition, the approaching of spring, in her bones. She blinks into the light, hands curling into the blankets.
The bedroom door opens, and Ichigo slips in, a plant balancing easily in one hand. The flowers are purple, the smell too sweet. She wrinkles her nose.
“Another?” she asks, tired.
“You’re just that lovable,” he drawls, setting it on the bedside table.
She sighs. “You’re an idiot.”
Ichigo just smirks and climbs onto the bed, sprawled out next to her on his back. His hand, broad and warm, settles on her knee. “How are you not still passed out? I’m exhausted,” he murmurs.
“Clearly I have more stamina than you,” she says, running her fingers lightly through his hair.
He shuts his eyes and snorts. “Clearly.” His head turns into her touch, the open warmth of her hand. “So.”
“So,” she parrots, biting down on a smile. Aki makes a soft sound, and both their heads turn automatically.
“This is weird,” he says with a strange sort of laugh.
“It is,” she murmurs, sliding down in bed. Her muscles protest, but she shifts closer to him, her hands resting on his chest. “Where is that plant from?”
“It was outside the front door. Guess someone left it, didn’t want to bother us,” he murmurs, sliding an arm around her shoulders.
She tucks her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder and shuts her eyes, sighing. “It’s too sweet,” she says softly.
“People do like you, surprisingly,” he drawls.
Slapping his stomach, she smiles slightly as he groans. “No. The plant – it smells too sweet.”
For a moment, the two of them exhale. In his bassinet, the baby coughs.
“Fucking – fuck – “ Ichigo mutters at last, all his muscles tense. He gets up and strides across the room. She watches as he takes the plant in hand and storms out of the bedroom. Windows open in the living room; she turns her eyes to their son, quiet and content, and a shiver runs down her spine.
We will all have to be careful now, Shirayuki whispers.
“I don’t – I don’t understand how – how – “ Ichigo says as he strides back in, face red and eyes flashing. She can feel the ripple of his reiatsu against hers, harsh and angry. Aki whimpers in his sleep.
“Stop,” she murmurs softly, as he sits at the edge of the bed. She reaches out, running her fingers along the stiff line of his spine, feeling the press of bone through his sweater. “He can feel it.”
Ichigo’s hands make fists at his sides. He doesn’t turn around. “Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Okay.”
Wetting her lips, she lays her hand flat at the small of his back. “Ichigo.”
Now he turns, and moves across their bed. Without a word he curls himself around her, his chin at the top of her head. His hands are heavy and warm at her shoulder blades.
“I’m going to kill him,” he says at last, voice muffled into her hair.
Rukia keeps her eyes on the jumping pulse in his throat, her hands curled in his sweater. Her body aches and her gaze tires, but she cannot rest. “I know,” she says quietly, voice steady.
They stay as such, wide awake and curled together, until Aki wakes.
*
A year passes.
Aki grows, and is well-loved by all. She shifts into the growing pains of motherhood, retaining her blade and her seat in her division. Days when she is in Soul Society, Yuzu and Isshin take Aki gladly. She knows he is safe, but still, she is distracted.
Ichigo finishes a second year of university, and then goes to Soul Society for three months, just after Aki’s first birthday. There are rumblings of preparation, of the failing health of the Commander, and it all feels like it’s coming too fast. They should have had more time, just for themselves.
Rukia sees him when she goes for her visits with her brother and her captain. She does not bring their son to Soul Society. Not yet.
“It’s spring at home,” Ichigo breathes against her bare belly as he kneels before her. The corridors are dark and shadowed from the bright afternoon sunlight; today is an all-outside training day, and the barracks of the Thirteenth are empty, which is all they can ask for.
Her hands slide into his hair – longer, since he’s left – as he pushes at her uniform robes. His mouth is warm and wet at her hip, the juncture of her thigh. “Almost,” she breathes.
This, these secret moments hidden from the rest of the world, smacks too greatly of their old lives, of a time before there were rings on their fingers and vows and a son of both their bloods. She will take what of him she can get, for now; she will not raise a fuss over a little thing like separation, for they have endured much worse (and will again, the thought whispers across her mind) – but she does not have to like it.
He pulls her thigh over his shoulder and exhales softly, his mouth light on the inside of her thigh. She shivers even so, tipping her head back against the cool wood paneling.
“I miss you,” he says, low and hoarse, before his tongue is at her clit, and she shuts her eyes on it, on the sharp burn behind them.
“It’s all we do,” she whispers at last, kissing the taste of herself from his mouth as he presses her back into the wall. Her thighs slide over his hips as her heel drags against the back of his thigh.
He moans as he slides inside of her, hot and thick and easy. She bows her back, eyes wide open into the shadows.
“What is?” he breathes out against her throat. His hands span her waist and dig in as he moves inside of her.
She presses against him, her arms linked around his neck. Her mouth slides over his temple, his brow. “We miss,” she murmurs, still trembling from moments before, his mouth over his clit and three fingers curved inside her.
Biting at her throat, he moans her name, low and slow. All she can do is shut her eyes and pull him close, remember the press of his hips against hers, the warmth of his breath at her skin. This feels like a goodbye, more than anything else ever has.
After, he dresses her, a soft, domestic moment. It reminds her of mornings in their apartment, brief interludes between their son and classes and family and friends. His hands linger at the belt of her robes.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he says, his mouth at her cheek.
She tugs at his open robes, closing them over his chest. “I know,” she murmurs, keeping her eyes on his shoulder.
His hands cup her face, framed in his long fingers. She looks up at last. His eyes are too sharp, too bright; she thinks she is looking at the king, here.
“It’s Aizen. I’m – I’m going for him,” he tells her then, serious and too deadly.
Hands rising, her fingers settle and clasp at his wrists. “Alone?” she asks steadily.
“Yes. No one knows, except Isshin,” he says.
Quickly, she pushes up on her toes and kisses him, mouth open and soft. “I want to go with you.”
His fingers curve into her jaw. “No,” he breathes against her mouth. “I need you safe, with Aki.”
“And I need you to come back – “ she cuts herself off, swallowing hard. There is a burn behind her eyes she can’t control, hot and wet and sharp. “Ichigo, don’t do anything stupid.”
He smiles then, slow and slight against her mouth. The corridor is too cool and too quiet. “I always try not to, you know.”
“You’re terrible at it,” she breathes through a short laugh, shaking her head. “Ichigo – “
“I’ve told you before,” he says, interrupting her softly. His eyes are flecked with gold here, too bright. “We will never leave you.”
The lump in her throat is too hard to swallow past. She presses her fingers into his wrist, to feel the skin and bones of him once more. “Ichigo –“
He kisses her one last time. The shadows have moved across the corridor walls; they cannot not be gone too long, else someone will be sent to look. She doesn’t close her eyes.
“Don’t worry, okay? I’m always fine,” he says with a sharp little smile.
“Always doesn’t last forever,” she retorts as their hands fall away from each other.
“Eh, I’m pretty sure it does for us,” he says with a shrug.
She wants to throttle him, to take his too-big too-broad sword and smack him right over the head with it – but Shirayuki is there, soothing her, and lower, quieter, she feels the rumble of Zangestu, under the scar she knows as well as he does.
Then, he reaches out and takes her hand in his. Their rings clink and press together. “Just take care of Aki, and yourself,” he says quietly.
“We’ll be fine,” she says, letting him pull her along through the corridor. She can hear the exercises going on in the courtyards below.
Ichigo leans over and presses his mouth to her temple. “I know. You always are.”
She keeps her hand in his as long as she dares, before they separate; she goes to Ukitake, and he to the Commander.
Her ring seems to burn the thin skin of her knuckles.
*
One month later, Orihime is with her at the open air market in the park, oohing and aahing with Aki over lemons and strawberries, when she feels it. There is a prickle of cold over her skin, the air shifting. Rukia looks up into the treetops and frowns.
"Rukia-san?" Orihime murmurs, voice too serious. For yes, Orihime would feel it too. Of course.
"We should get going," Rukia murmurs, lifting Kai up onto her hip. She and Orihime pay for their fruits and move out back towards the city center. Orihime stays close, a hand on Aki's little arm, and Rukia does feel it, a rush of gratefulness.
The entrance to the park, which leads into the city again, is deserted. A tall lean man stands in the center of the gate, waiting. His dark hair is shorn, his skin pale - and she stops, just as Orihime does, and feels Kai shift uncomfortably in her arms.
"Ah, Kuchiki-san. But it is Kurosaki now, is it not?"
Aizen's mouth curls as he speaks. His eyes are hard dark flints in his too-pale face.
Rukia breathes. Ichigo is gone, in Soul Society supposedly chasing this very man. She is alone.
"It is," she says, and feels the ridges of Shirayuki's hidden hilt at her hip.
"You do not run," Aizen drawls, fingertips dragging lazily through the air.
Rukia settles, and shuts her eyes for a moment. Shirayuki materializes in her hand, and she passes Aki to Orihime. "Why would we start now?" she asks evenly.
Aizen has no sword at his hand. But she knows he does not need one. “Kurosaki is not here to save you this time, Rukia. I would consider it,” he says, and she hears the threat in each word.
Bankai, Shirayuki murmurs, and she is not at liberty to argue.
“Inoue-san, go – “ Rukia shouts as the ice rises around her, a shield for them. Second dance, she thinks, and the sword shifts as the cold spreads, and her clothes shimmer into nothing. She hears Aizen swear and try to give chase, but she is there, a sword at his throat as the ice drops.
“I am not the same Shinigami you once stole from,” she breathes with her hand at the base of his throat. The tip of her blade is set at his chest.
He takes her in, the pale white kimono of her bankai, the fingerless gloves, the white ribbons at her throat. “You mirror him,” he murmurs, unmoving in her grasp.
She digs her sword against his skin; there is a flicker of skin and then, she smells the blood she draws from his chest, red against the ratty clothes he dons. “You are going to die,” she says to him, without hesitation or regret.
The air shifts and changes, thickening and cooling. There is snow at her feet, belying the warm spring day, and the wind picks up, harsh through her loose hair. The two of them are too close now, and she feels the build of kido at his fingertips and palms. She is ready for the blast.
“I am going to die,” he murmurs, and she meets his eyes, too purple to be real. “But who will I take with me?”
His hand touches her belly and she feels the flinch travel up her spine. She does not give way.
“Oh yes,” he breathes, too sweet in her ear. “Another bastard here. How foolish of you, Rukia.”
“You know nothing,” she grits out through her teeth, and pushes Shirayuki’s blade right through his chest.
He laughs. The blood is on her fingers and palms, and she smells it in the air, but he laughs nonetheless.
“Would I bring my real self here?” he asks her, smiling cruelly.
She steps back, sliding a bloody hand over her stomach. The glamour at his face and body begins to fade, and she swallows too hard as Aizen’s face disappears, and in its place there is nothing but a faceless body, a ghost, a fade; the blood is real but the body is not, and she feels the bile rise at the back of her throat. It is a trick, and yet – she feels the guilt of blood on her hands.
The air shifts again, and she feels it, the opening of the gate. Ichigo is coming back. It will be brief, she knows.
She sheathes Shirayuki and watches as the body of nothingness disappears into the air, mixing with the ice and snow. Her bankai fades, and the blood disappears from her hands. Still, she feels it on her tongue and skin.
“Did you know?” she asks out loud after a moment, to herself, to Ichigo, to Shirayuki.
Shirayuki does not answer. Ichigo does.
“Yes,” he says, as he drops to his feet in front of her. He looks – different. His hair falls deeply across his gaze, his shoulders broader, the cut of his jaw sharper. He is tan and weary with travel, and she aches for the feel of his hands on her skin – it’s been too long, she thinks.
“How?” she asks softly. The hand on her flat stomach flexes.
Ichigo, in his dark Shinigami robes, looks all apart from this world. She watches uneasily as he approaches her, his hand outstretched. “When you were in Soul Society last month,” he says quietly.
His hand slides over hers on her belly and she shakes her head. “You couldn’t have known – “
“I felt it from here,” he says, voice even. He is stronger now than she has ever known him to be.
“What’s going on?” she asks at last, shutting her eyes. There is one child of theirs safe with friends, apparently another on the way, and she has just murdered a shade of Aizen. She feels decidedly unsteady, too sharp for words.
Ichigo bows his head close to hers, his mouth at her temple. “I came to make sure you were okay. Aizen’s free. I’m chasing, but – “
“But nothing,” she says, shrugging away from him. “Ichigo, what – what is happening to you? What the hell is going on?”
He runs a hand through his hair, and she is suddenly reminded of the boy she first knew. They are all one and the same, she thinks – she has to keep reminding herself of that, in any case.
“I’m doing what I have to do,” he says at last, watching her with dark eyes. Her heart sinks into her stomach. “Stay safe,” he murmurs before he leans in and kisses her just once.
Then, he is gone once more, for the gate back to Soul Society, she imagines. Rukia moves her fingers over her mouth and shuts her eyes, suddenly sick to her stomach. After just a moment, she smoothes her hair back and moves through the park, off to find Orihime and her son.
You fight the fights that can be fought, Shirayuki murmurs.
It does not soothe her.
*
Wake up, she hears in the dead of sleep.
It has just been days, a few days. She sleeps with Aki in the large bed she usually shares with Ichigo, protective to a fault. There has been no news; Urahara has left the shop to join the fight in Soul Society. The gate will not open; she has tried multiple times.
Wake up, she hears again, a sweet dark voice she knows but cannot name.
She opens her eyes in her dreams, outside of the living waking world. Her Shinigami uniform is loose on her shoulders and waist. There, waiting for her, are Zangestu and Ichigo’s Hollow.
“What happened?” is first out of her mouth, though she thinks she can guess.
Zangestu bows his head, weary around the mouth and eyes. “You have carried me before. You must again.”
Rukia blinks into the bright blank white of her dreams, glancing between the two of them. The Hollow does not smile, strangely; he is Ichigo but not, and her fingers curl against her palms with the recognition.
“What happened?” she repeats.
The Hollow tilts his head, eyeing her up and down. “You’re not stupid, Rukia-chan. Why else would we be here?” he says, light and sweet.
She touches her fingers to her mouth for a moment. There is a strange coolness to her skin, an odd ringing in her mind. Shirayuki is too silent.
“He’s dead,” she says after a too-soft moment.
Zangestu and the Hollow say nothing; they say everything in that.
“I see,” she says at last. She wants to press her hands to her face and scream, just as she did at the loss of the siblings so long ago – but there are others who need her. There are two in front of her now.
“You must carry me until it is time,” Zangestu says, hair dark and hanging over his face. He looks sad, and she can’t imagine – she remembers the loss of Shirayuki for a time, but for this sword and this master – she can’t begin to imagine. His eyes echo hers, she thinks, dark and empty.
Silently, she pulls her blade from its sheath. Shirayuki is alive at last, humming softly for her partner sword, a mournful sound. Zangetsu moves forward, dark robes fluttering at the hems. Slowly, with a ruby-dark flash of light that reminds her too much of Ichigo, his sword disappears into hers. She feels it, the pulse of him at the scar in her belly, and shuts her eyes for a moment.
“Is there enough room for me too?”
She opens her eyes and looks at the Hollow. “No,” she says quietly. There is a sharp lump at the back of her throat, too hard to swallow down. “What will you do?”
The Hollow shrugs, smirking just slightly. His hair falls into his eyes, just as Ichigo’s does – did. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Now he smiles. It’s meant to be a comfort, she’s sure. “You can’t think that this is the end, Rukia-chan.”
Then, he disappears, right in front of her eyes. Rukia sheathes her sword, rests a hand to her belly, and closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, she is in the soft spring darkness of their bedroom. Aki sleeps soundly on his father’s pillow.
Rukia sits up, in an old shirt of Ichigo’s. Rain smears against the windows, heavy and cool. She can taste it in the air. She feels it, the change in the atmosphere; the gate is opening. They are coming to tell her; she can pick out her brother, Kyouraku, Ukitake, Urahara. Slowly, she rises. She lets her son sleep for now. She gathers her Shinigami robes and moves into the bathroom to change; she will meet them warrior to warrior, or not at all.
If she cries for a moment in the emptiness of the bathroom, with his toothbrush and his razor still resting on the edges of the sink, there is no one there to see.
*
There is no body.
Nanao is the one to tell her, just days later. They sit in her living room – just hers, now, since Ichigo – and Aki plays with blocks on the floor near her feet. Rukia keeps a hand hovering near his small bright head, just in case he rolls away. At one, he shouldn’t – but she doesn’t know.
Ichigo would know, she thinks absently.
“I’m sorry,” Nanao says at last. The words are empty, bitter. The older woman’s hand lingers near her knee.
Rukia blinks and looks past Nanao, to the steadily falling snow. Spring has disappeared into the corners of the town now; Shirayuki is merciless where she is silent.
“What happened to it?” she asks at last, voice flat.
Nanao tucks her hair behind her ears. Her eyes are red and lined behind her eyes. “We – we went to retrieve him, to try and help – and it was gone.”
“Gone?” Rukia repeats. She feels it now, the bile rising in her throat. Not yet not yet not yet.
“Yes. As if – as if it has disappeared. Which makes very little sense, I know –“
“And Aizen?” Rukia interrupts.
Nanao’s mouth thins. “We disposed of his body as was befitting a traitor,” she says coldly.
Fire and ash, Rukia thinks. She thinks she can smell the flesh burning, the scars and ash – she thinks of Inuzuri then, of the scars left there, of the –
“Have you looked for him in Soul Society?” she asks after a moment.
Slowly, Nanao nods. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“And?”
“There is no sign of him, reborn or otherwise,” Nanao says quietly.
Rukia wants to say that doesn’t make any sense. She wants to talk about her dreams, the ones she has continuously, where it is not the Hollow or Zangetsu or Ichigo who visits and asks why she does nothing – it is the King, and she knows, she knows they are all one and the same. He comes with the markings of Ichigo’s last bankai and gold eyes, and asks why.
Instead, Rukia just nods, and passes her old friend a cup of tea. There is little to do now.
*
One night, sleepless and lost, she leaves Aki in the care of Isshin and goes across town to Urahara’s shop. There is a fire on her tongue, ratcheting up the nerves and anger in her veins. Plans, she thinks; all of this has been plans and more plans, and she is tired of the loss, of the taking.
The blonde ex-captain is up, sitting outside on the porch. He looks across the dusty lot, meeting her gaze.
“You honor me with a visit, Kuchiki-san,” Urahara says. He sounds tired, strained. At his feet, Yourichi meows and settles, her black tail curled into itself.
Rukia’s fists clench at her sides. “You did this,” she says, voice hoarse. “You and your plans and schemes.”
“I am heavily aware of my part in Kurosaki’s death, Lieutenant,” he says flatly. “I do not deny it.”
“Why?” she asks, the word ripping from her throat. The spring air, cool again, lies heavily on her shoulders. “Why did he have to die?”
In the darkness, she can barely make out Urahara’s face, under the brim of his hat. But she can taste the questioning, the remorse in the air. “Spirits like Kurosaki’s do not die.”
“He isn’t here,” she says fiercely. Within her, Shirayuki hums and rises, the breeze cooling around her. “I carry his sword once more, and he is gone.”
“The king will return,” he murmurs in that casual gentle way of his.
“That isn’t the same as Ichigo,” she retorts, the anger flushing her skin.
Urahara rises. “That is all the assurance I have for you, Kuchiki-san,” he says before he moves into the shop. Yourichi follows, and Rukia is alone, as she is used to.
She turns from the shop at last, and does not return. There are no answers to be had here.
*
It is in her sleep that she finds a path. In dreams, she opens her eyes to white plains and skies, and the Hollow, always waiting for her.
“You were supposed to disappear,” she says the first time.
Ichigo’s Hollow just laughs, an empty cruel thing borne of loss. “I could never leave you, Rukia-chan.”
She scowls and picks at her Shinigami robes. “Your host has.”
“But has he really?” he drawls.
It is the same, every time. Sometimes, he is silent, and so is she, wrapped in their own forms of grief. Sometimes she prods, question after question, and he becomes irritated and silent. Sometimes it is all teases and smiles; she hates those nights the most.
One night, a month past his death, she opens her eyes to find two. The Hollow, pale and yellow-eyed, waits and lounges as he usually does.
Then, there is the king.
She watches him coolly. He is dressed in the white robes of a commander, black obis and trimmed with gold; his eyes are gold, too sharp. There is no spirit or sign of Ichigo in him, but they look just as similar as she would imagine, but for the hair; it is long, heavy down his back, that strange bright hue. He is too broad and muscled to be Ichigo – but –
“Shall I curtsey?” she asks at last.
The Hollow chuckles. “What do we see in her?” he murmurs, all amusement. She pays him no mind.
The king says nothing, merely inclines his head. There is a deep ache pushing itself out of the depths and hollows of her chest, out onto her lips. Rukia shakes her head and smoothes her robes, breathing the thin air of the dream world too quickly.
“Do you linger here too for some reason?” she asks sharply.
Now, he looks at her. The gaze is familiar; she has seen it in Ichigo’s face before. “You must find us,” he says at last, and it is Ichigo’s voice that speaks.
“There is nothing to find,” she says, too harshly. The bitterness is hard on her tongue. “You – he died, and there is nothing left.”
She blinks against the whiteness, against the wet burn behind her eyes. She is a Shinigami, a warrior, and she will not cry – she has not yet since the first night.
“They found nothing of us, but that does not mean we are not to be found,” he says. Even the Hollow is quiet, attentive. “You are the one who will find us, just as we have found you.”
“What – what does that mean?” she asks, too tired and too weary to fight. There is a weight on her shoulders she cannot contemplate, a weight gathering in her belly that she was not prepared for.
“You are the one,” the Hollow repeats, smiling slightly. “What an honor, Rukia-chan.”
The king speaks no more, and she is left to pace the white plains in frustration, searching for a blade. Rukia wakes, with the words ringing in her ears, as spring rain hammers against the windows. The bed is too empty, and she is alone.
Her fingers curl in the sheets.
You are the one, Shirayuki whispers, the answering hum of Zangestu in the scar she carries too close to her skin, blood and bones.
Rukia tastes sand, sand and dust, and knows where she must go.
*
The apartment is too empty and too full of reminders at the same time. One weekend into the summer, two months after the battle, when she is just starting to show with the new pregnancy, the Kurosaki family comes and helps her move out and into their home. They intend to give her the guest room, and Aki to have Ichigo’s old room, but she shakes her head, and takes the room that she and Ichigo shared more often than not for years.
It feels like she is stepping into the past, almost. She opens his closet where she once slept, however briefly, and places her clothes in one by one. Down the hall, Yuzu plays with Aki and there is a sense of delight in the hour for the first time. The sun is peeking out from clouds, and Rukia traces her fingers over his old desk, smiling slightly.
“Sometimes I think he’ll burst in,” comes Karin’s voice from the doorway. She is older now, in university and on the school’s soccer team. She reminds Rukia too much of herself and Ichigo in the strangest ways; it makes her heart hurt. “Yelling about something,” Karin goes on. “Beating up Dad.”
Rukia glances over her shoulder, her fingers curving over scratches in the desk. “I think that too,” she says softly.
Karin shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s still in her practice uniform, fresh from the fields. “It’s good you’re here. Dad worries about you all the time.”
“That’s sweet,” Rukia says with something of a smile. It feels strange on her mouth.
The younger woman leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms. “He thinks you aren’t staying.”
Her fingers linger at the worn edges of the desk. “I will not take Aki to the other world,” she says at last, carefully. There is a pulse of energy at her belly to the palm of her hand.
“That’s not you staying.”
Rukia swallows and looks out the window, into the hazy heat of the summer afternoon. She says nothing, for there are no promises she can make that she will not break. She will go to Soul Society, and soon. There is an impulse to it, a calling she hears in the emptiness of her sleeping hours. The scar left by Zangetsu all those years ago throbs at her skin with it.
“I will be back for your mother’s anniversary. You will take care of Aki. Won’t you?” she asks at last, turning to look at Karin.
Gaze bright and burning, Karin nods. “Don’t leave him an orphan,” she says tightly before she peels off and into the hallway, walking carefully towards her room.
Rukia shuts her eyes and breathes. There is a lingering of Ichigo here in this room, too slight.
Dreams are not to base one’s hopes on, Shirayuki murmurs in the back of her mind.
She opens her eyes and looks at the small twin bed, all she has left of the accidents and vagaries of fate.
“They are all I have,” she says out loud. It is enough
*
Dust is heavy on her tongue from the moment she steps out from the gate and back into Soul Society.
Her brother is waiting, alone. He looks weary, if there is a look about him at all. With the captain-commander dead and Ichigo, leaders are few and far between. The captains were never ones to plan in plain sight, she thinks.
There is a strange sense of inaction, of being stuck in traction - as if the world doesn't know what to do, now that Ichigo is gone. Both worlds feel this way, with all of their members swayed under its currents of what now and how.
She refuses the pull of it. It isn't what they do.
Byakuya's gaze flits to her belly, then back to her face, unreadable. "Rukia."
"Nii-sama," she returns pleasantly. Her palm grazes her sword. It is the first time she has seen him since he came with Kyouraku and Shinji to tell her of Ichigo’s death.
She does not hold a grudge, though. She has never been able to.
"You look well," he says as they walk together through the fields, still scorched earth in patches. She thinks she can smell blood, the lingering remnants of Ichigo's reiatsu.
"I am healthy," she says, for it is the truth. Whether that is well - she cannot say.
“My nephew?” he asks. He is fond of Aki, in his own ways; affectionate with her son where he feels he cannot be with her.
“Safe with Isshin and his daughters,” she says evenly.
Byakuya curls a hand at her elbow. "I do not know what you think to find. We cannot sense him in any shape or form," he says evenly.
Rukia's mouth curls. She slides a hand over the faint swell of her stomach, Shirayuki's hilt.
"I couldn't tell you myself," she says at last. "But I knew I must come."
"There is no hope," he says, in his blunt even way.
She shrugs, swallows down the bitterness on her tongue. "This way, I will know for sure."
There is a squeeze, however slight, at her elbow, and then his hand falls away. "Your first stop?"
She inhales deeply, wetting her lips. "Inuzari."
*
She picks Inuzari because they tell her to, in so many words. In the white landscape of her dreams, she picks at the Hollow and the king, waiting.
“How will I know where to start?” she asks. “Ichigo is not a product of the spirit world.”
“In some ways he is,” the Hollow says.
“But not enough to have associations,” she retorts.
“You don’t count yourself as an association, then?” the Hollow drawls. “You certainly do sell yourself short, Rukia-chan.”
She suppresses the urge to run him through, and takes a deep breath. The air is thin here; she takes her time with the breaths. “So, you are asking me to trace my own path, to find his.”
“As a general rule, sure,” the Hollow murmurs, glancing at the silent, stony king. “He’s not much help.”
“No, he wouldn’t be,” she murmurs.
So it is her dreams that lead her to follow the steps she once took when she was lost and without memory of self, to Inuzari. She goes alone, with only her blade and her kido as a protection. The district is still poor, still wild, but she is more than capable. She is not afraid.
*
Rukia does not go far in her old district without company.
“Leavin’ me out of the reunion tour?”
Renji appears next to her on her solitary rooftop. She stands near the edge, watching the sun track along the bottomless skies. In the streets, wares are hocked and food shoved into the faces of those with money, while the children beg and go hungry in the streets. She feels the undercurrent of malignancy and fear in the air; she thinks she can taste it. It is familiar.
“My brother?” she asks dryly.
Renji shrugs. “You being in this world isn’t something anyone’s going to miss. And yeah, your brother. So, what’re you doin’ leaving me out?”
“I didn’t want to drag you away from your duties,” she says at last, the dusty dry wind ruffling her loose hair.
Renji’s hand falls to her shoulder, broad and reassuring. “You mean you wanted to martyr yourself again. The two of you are idiots,” he mutters.
“Just the one of us now,” she says harshly.
His hand curls into her shoulder. “He’s somewhere,” Renji says quietly.
There is the taste of despair in the back of her throat. “If he was, wouldn’t he know to find me here?” she asks, the question too soft and too quiet to be in her voice. “He would – he has always before.”
What she wants to say is this: they have gone through hell, literally and figuratively; if this was not the end, then where was he?
Renji doesn’t answer, and she sighs. The sun is hot on her bare face. One of her hands falls to her stomach, faintly curving. It is hidden by the loose folds of her Shinigami robes.
“They tell me to start here,” she says after a moment.
“So we will,” Renji says, rubbing a hand across her shoulder blades.
She wets her lips and nods. Soon, the two of them fly across the rooftops. She takes the lead, and lets the strange tattoo in her heartbeat lead the way.
As we have found you, she tastes between empty attics and silence. You must find us as we have found you.
*
Inuzari is a dead end. Renji and Rukia linger at the outskirts of the district, swallowed and shimmering with dust and sand. She coughs, and pushes the hair from her eyes. Sweat dries against the curve of her throat, dirt lingers under her fingernails. It’s disheartening, sheepish; she feels silly, like an obsessive specter of the woman she once was.
Renji clears his throat. She looks at him, ready for the jolt back into some sort of reality. He is dead and gone, she thinks he will say. This is useless.
“Where next?” is all that Renji asks, hand resting against the hilt of his blade. His gaze is bright and steady on hers.
The lump in her throat is too hard to swallow down. Mutely, she nods towards the cliffs. Renji takes her elbow, and off they go.
*
“We didn’t know there was another kid,” Renji says the next day, as they wander through the barracks and corridors of the Seireitei. She is at a loss, having searched out the cliffs, the woods, the plains – even the hill where once she nearly lost her life but for a brash young man and his bold sword. Everything is a closed door and a dead end, and yet she still feels the haunting of the pieces of his lost self, telling her to try harder, to find.
Rukia nods to the young Shinigami from the fourth, she thinks, as they walk. She still breathes in dust and sand from Inuzari, though she has showered and is refreshed. A meeting with Ukitake is behind her, a meeting with her brother ahead; everything feels at a loss now. There were plans, and now, what of them?
“I didn’t really know either, until right before he died,” she says. Her lips curl around her teeth; it is the first time she has said it out loud to anyone, really – he died.
“Did he know?” Renji asks.
She sighs and turns the corner with him. He walks her to the Sixth, where she goes to meet Byakuya. “Yes. But it didn’t matter.”
“Fuckin’ should have,” Renji mutters.
Touching his elbow, she shakes her head. “He never tried to stop me from doing what I wanted. I would never have tried to stop him. He was the only one who could have defeated Aizen.”
“And now look,” he says sharply.
Eyes narrowing, she smacks his shoulder hard. “Look at what? I’m fine. His children will be safe. I will continue to do my duty as a lieutenant, and there is safety for both worlds. He did – he did what he needed to do,” she says sharply.
The words spill from her mouth before she knows what she says, and she feels the truth of them. It’s true; they are safe, and the children will be whole. There are destinies still to wait for them all, and Ichigo wanted them to have the chance to reach them. If his own has been delayed or denied, he would care nothing of it.
Renji shakes his head, hair falling wild at his neck. “You won’t even let me worry for you now,” he mutters.
“Never,” she says with a small smile. She is still fragile; but she will never break.
*
She sleeps that night in her old room at the mansion. It holds no real memories of Ichigo for her; it is a breath of relief, momentarily at least.
But then she opens her eyes in her dreams, and he is there, waiting.
It is not the Hollow, it is not the king; it is Ichigo as she knew him, a brash smile and dark eyes, unlined around the mouth and eyes. He is younger in years and miles, like the boy she first knew.
“Oh,” she breathes, feeling it like a sock to the gut.
“That’s eloquent,” he drawls. There is no sign of the Shinigami upon him; the fifteen glaring at her from his t-shirt is too young for him and yet just right at the same time.
“So it’s just you,” she says at last, fingers curling into her robes.
“Just me,” he says with a smirk.
“Where are you?” she blurts out, hand at her throat. Her nails dig at her skin.
Ichigo shrugs, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. “I don’t know. Wandering.”
“I could kill you right now –“ she hisses.
“That would be a little redundant, eh?” he murmurs, smile fading.
The grief chokes and strangles her words. She presses a palm to her chest, over a scar she will not forget, and shuts her eyes. “Where are you?” she asks again, and the reedy quality to her voice catches her off guard.
Suddenly, he is near her, too close. She thinks she can feel the warmth of his skin, the shade that he is. His hand hovers over her stomach, over the scar Zangestu lives in.
“I’m here,” he says quietly. “And I’m here,” he repeats, his palm flat on the curve of her stomach.
She opens her eyes and meets his gaze, steady and unwavering. “They told me to look for you,” she says softly.
“They were telling you right,” he says. “But it’s not time.”
“Are you trying to tell me this was a plan?” she asks angrily.
He smiles slightly, and reaches out to smooth a hand through her hair. “No. I’m shit for plans, you know that.”
Her mouth curls against its will. “So what, then?”
“So it’s just not time. Or you would have found me. You always do,” he says softly, his fingers sliding against her jaw.
She shakes her head. “It’s just – Ichigo, we didn’t have enough time,” she breathes.
He nods, and it’s as simple as that. There are tears she would spill, but she knows he doesn’t know what to do with her if she were to cry.
Instead, she takes a step back. “You are there to be found?” she asks after a long moment.
“Eventually,” he says, that small smirk familiar on his mouth. “Can’t have a king without a reincarnation, eh?”
“You’d think death would humble you,” she retorts.
“Would you?” he shoots back.
She wets her lips and shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Thought not.”
“Should I – should I be nice to you?” she asks after a moment.
Now he smiles, eyes bright. “Have you ever been?”
Rolling her eyes, she smoothes her hands over her robes. “Idiot.”
She sobers then, as does he. The question why lies on the tip of her tongue – followed by did you know- but how can she ask these of him? And now?
“I had to kill him,” he says at last. “No matter what. You and Aki – and, well – this one – you had to be safe.”
Passing a hand over her eyes, she sighs. “You’re an idiot,” she says tiredly.
He shrugs. “It was worth it.”
“I’m going to make whatever has to happen to you when we find you hurt. You know that,” she mutters.
“I do,” he says, quite plainly. It’s a strange echo of the marriage vows they took, first in secret, and then surrounded by family and friends and fellow warriors. “Looking forward to it.”
And then, because they do not say goodbyes, he disappears.
When she wakes up, sunlight streams through the open shutters of her old bedroom, birds alive and chirping in the gardens and the trees. The mansion is alive and up, and she knows she must go home.
*
Time passes; two years, but she does not count the days.
She counts it in births; their daughter is born at the beginning of December, winter just curling around the landscape. In the spirit of memories, she names her Masaki, for the grandmother she will never meet; Isshin is nearly in convulsions on the floor of the hospital room, while Byakuya and Karin share an eyeroll. Yuzu just hums and gets Rukia more ice water.
She counts it in birthdays; Aki turns two, and then three, as Masaki turns one. Her own birthdays go unnoted, except for a cake at the table during dinner.
She counts it in Hollows killed; not as many as when Aizen lived, and Ichigo, but enough. She is assigned permanently to Karakura Town, and spends her evenings on the prowl and watch as Yuzu watches her children.
She counts it in marriages, or something like; Nanao and Kyouraku, at last. Her brother, blackmailed in some form or another, allows them the use of the courtyards and gardens of the Kuchiki mansion. It is pretty, and utterly ridiculous; too many roses, and Kyouraku is nearly as begowned as the bride herself.
At last, she counts it in deaths; in the spring of Aki’s third birthday, the Captain-Commander finally dies. A vacuum of power sits in Seireitei, as the other captains struggle to fill what was supposed to be Ichigo’s seat, she imagines. There are no thrones yet to be had, but now – now she looks to the skies and the air and she thinks to look again for a boy turned man turned king, waiting.
*
The summer nights are heavy on her skin.
Rukia moves from rooftop to rooftop, waiting and watching. There is an especially persistent Hollow that keeps her on her toes, and she is claiming this night to take it down. The day’s events wear on her still; it was the death day for Isshin’s Masaki, and she, along with the Yuzu and the children, went to the cemetery with Isshin, and picnicked. Karin is spared, being away with her soccer team for a short tour of games.
It is the cemetery that gives her pause now, in the thick warm night. She pauses and shifts into the direction of the hills and wooded groves. It smells like rain, the heady scent of ozone hard in her nose.
In the middle of the grove, a path she knows well, there are screams. Spirits newly made linger near their own graves at times; tonight is no different. It is a young girl tonight, long blonde hair and eyes like the ocean; she was in the news, drowned off the shore just days ago. The Hollow, large and grim and baring its teeth, follows her, reaching with sharp claws and too-long arms.
Quietly, Rukia pulls Shirayuki from her sheath. She is a different warrior, in small ways; she has the added shift and give of Zangestu lingering under her skin, and Shirayuki thrives with the power. But she is more stealthy, more controlled even than before, more willing to give credence to her abilities and strengths.
“Hey! What the hell – “
Rukia lands on the cobblestones just as a tall man emerges from the woods, waving his arms at the Hollow. Shrieking, the Hollow turns from the young girl and wheels around onto the young man. The moon peeks out from amidst the thick rainclouds, pulling shadows off of his face.
It only takes Rukia a moment to know how the pieces have fallen together.
In seconds, she is airborne, calling second dance. The ice gathers, sharply cold even in the summer warmth, and comes down around the Hollow before it can make a move on the man. She is quick, and efficient with her attacks, and soon, the Hollow is cleaved from existence, just ash and smoke and the soft screams of the tortured dead.
She lands softly, looking directly at the harried young man.
“What the – “ he stops, dark eyes narrowing. Amber still, and amber they will remain. His hair is longer, falling into his eyes, curling at the nape of his neck. Even in the dim light she can see the brightness. She wonders, absently, where he has been hiding.
“Wait,” she says softly, her mouth turning. There is a charge to attend to. “Please.”
She turns without hearing his answer. If it is him, he will wait, she thinks.
The young girl whimpers, and then sighs as Rukia releases her spirit into the air, speeding along to the other world. Rukia waits a beat before she rises from her crouch and turns back around. Her tongue is heavy in her mouth, and there he is, waiting, unmoving.
Her knuckles shift against her robes. All the nerves across her skin are afire with recognizance, with yearning. She hears the rumble of Zangestu, long asleep, in the lowest deepest parts of her middle, under the scar given.
Now, she gives another in return.
“You did not run,” she says at last, approaching.
His mouth curls into something of a smirk. “You said to wait, didn’t you.”
She wets her lips. “Do you know me?” she asks softly, her hand easy on Shirayuki’s hilt.
His eyes darken, widen; she sees it, the flashes of something. His face twitches. “I should,” he says slowly.
Shirayuki cools in her palm. She knows what she must do.
“My name is Rukia,” she says at last.
“Rukia,” he repeats, tasting the sound of it. She curls her fingers around the hilt of her blade to keep herself from touching him. “I’m Ichigo.”
“No last name?” she asks dryly.
“Don’t remember it. Also, don’t remember you givin’ me one either,” he retorts.
Now, she smiles. There is the hum and vibration of Zangestu within her, ready. It is always hers to give him, to bequeath and retain and carry. Just as he carried her, she will always carry him.
It is what they do.
“I did say I would make this hurt,” she murmurs.
And then, just as she had years before, with tears running down his face and his powers in shreds, she lifts her blade and pushes cleanly into his chest, just at the heart. The power is unerring; the shock the same.
As she feels Zangestu leave her, she hears the lingering remnants of king and Hollow whisper in her ear. The grove is awash in ruby-dark light, the sign of his power. Ichigo’s eyes close and his hands reach for hers at the hilt of her blade. The touch is too warm but she takes it, just as she takes the shaking of her wrists and the burns from the sheer force of his power. Remember, the trees seem to whisper.
Remember, she whispers herself, and shuts her eyes.
Hands link at her wrists, broad and warm, and pull.
“Ow, fuck me,” he mutters as she lets Shirayuki settle at her side. She opens her eyes, and there he is – Ichigo, in Shinigami robes, watching her and rubbing his chest. “You did not make that easy.”
“I told you – “ she begins hotly. “I told you I would make it hurt!”
“Good job,” he mutters.
She sheaths her sword and plants her hands on her hips. “That’s the way you’re going to say hello?”
“Is it any better than stabbing me – again – and then kicking me that other time?” he retorts, still rubbing at his chest. The leather wraps around his throat and wrists once more, and he looks – he looks as real as she’s imagined him for years now, real and whole and alive.
Shaking her head, she presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Just shut up,” she mutters angrily. “I could just kill you, I could – “
Then, his arms are around her, locked at her waist, and she can’t help but press her face into his shoulder, to breathe in the strangely real solidarity of Ichigo. His mouth grazes her temple and she curls her hands into his robes, shaking her head.
“You’re such an idiot,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “I want answers for everything.”
“You can’t let me adjust for ten minutes?” he groans, still smiling against her brow.
“Ten minutes,” she breathes, because there are questions to answer and children to wake and the Seireitei to visit – it will happen faster now, the snowball of their lives together. “Ten minutes.”
She tips her head back to find him watching, searching. His mouth twists into his usual slight smirk.
“It’s a good ten minutes, then,” he murmurs before leaning down to kiss her.
There are connections to press together still. But for now, the weight of his sword and spirits has lifted, and she can have him, solid and whole against her. Later, he will take her to his father’s house and greet the children he barely knows, greet the father and sisters who mourned him, and take her to his old bedroom and keep her there for the night. In the harsh light of day they will go to Urahara’s shop, and Ichigo will open a gate all on his own.
There are legacies of power coming. For now, she can take solace in just the man here, under the groves of trees.
It’s what she wanted of him, after all.
*