First attempt at a multi-chapter fic! That's intimidating as all hell. Expected to total eight chapters. Spoilers for Soul Society arc, and some general information thereafter. Warning, poetry and overwrought symbolism ensue! Reviews (and constructive criticism) would be appreciated. Writing a grieving-but-in-character Ichigo has been quite a challenge.
Disclaimer: Only Bleach I own is NaOCl. Chapters begin with a line from a poem. Full quotations and attributions for these will appear at the end of each chapter.
Chapter One: Rayless and Pathless
"I had a dream, which was not all a dream..."
The portal flared into existence around an extended zanpakutou ("I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."). Ichigo tried to look away. He tried to run. The cliff, if he jumped off the cliff he'd fall. He'd wake up. You always wake up before... He reached the edge but the dream descended to envelop him with the wings of a carrion bird.
Wings... He'd needed wings, needed to fly to rescue her. He was flying but not for long. The Sokyokou awakened into a tower of flame, an immense soaring phoenix. He faced it and he fell. It battered him out of the sky like a brittle leaf in autumn winds.
He was flying when he saw her. He saw her exposed and vulnerable, suspended high in the air, dwarfed by that giant scaffold. Even the tears on her cheeks could not mar her serene acceptance of her fate. It only made him more determined. He was close enough to touch her, but he didn't. He smiled and said "Hey" when she opened her eyes. She called out his name. It was a brief reunion; that was all the time they had before the flames were licking at his back, before he was beset by burning wings, before he was falling. She called out his name a second time. He heard it as he fell but had no breath to reply.
The portal was opening, twin doors sliding apart slowly, too slowly ("I wasn't here in time. I wasn't here in time to save her. But you have to go."). It didn't belong there. That rift into nothing was so out of place Ichigo had a hard time believing it was real. He reached out tentative fingers to touch it.
He bit his tongue upon impact with the ground, tasted blood and dirt. He was far below the Sokyokou now, resting in a small crater at its base, but he could still feel the heat of it. Blisters were forming on the back of his neck. Lacking the strength to stand, Ichigo rolled himself over and raised his head. The hellish bird was drawing nearer to her. Her name was to be a scream to warn her, to ward off that dark phoenix, but it left his lips a hoarse whisper.
"Rukia..."
The portal was open, fragile paper doors yawning wide to admit glaring, unearthly white light ("It was her last request, that you be allowed to return home. Shunsui has gone to find your friends and send them, too."). A single hell butterfly hovered over his extended fingers, waiting to guide him across.
He couldn't move. He couldn't stand. All he could do was watch. He wouldn't let himself look away. His failure brought them to this point; he owed it to her not to look away. Ichigo heard screaming when the beast's terrible beak tore into her chest. It took him a moment to realize it was his own voice, a fractured, pitiful repetition slowly gaining volume: "No no no no no no NO NO NO NONONONONO!"
Her head snapped back at the impact and blood arced across the sky. For a terrifying instant Ichigo thought her blood would fall on him like rain, but the heat incinerated it and the ash was carried away by the force of beating wings. Wings of fire surrounded her. He saw her hair ignite, pale skin and violet eyes wreathed in flame.
The phoenix still surged forward, enfolding her small body and making it the center of the conflagration while its beak rent deeper into her flesh. Her back arched, bending in vain to escape the fires, back and back impossibly far, until
The portal was closing, twin doors sliding together slowly, too slowly ("Thank you for letting me honor her last wish. Go home, and live."). The scaffold and the shinigami with the kind face were disappearing before his eyes.
she was gone. One instant she was cloaked in flames, lips parted, eyes wide, silent, silent through it all, and then she was gone. Ichigo had watched. He had broken the vow made to his soul to rescue her and he did not turn away from the consequences. She was simply gone. The phoenix was gone, as well, though it left its mark in the singed edges of the white scaffolding.
The Sokyokou, sealed again, no longer exuded spirit pressure and Ichigo staggered to his feet. There was noise and shouting all around him but none of it registered in his mind, the words floating out of reach of sense or understanding. He could still hear the beating wings. The phoenix was gone but the sound of the wings pounded in his head. He pressed his hands over his eyes. So many voices and so much yelling and through it all the beating wings and he couldn't concentrate on any of it. In a vain attempt to block the roaring noise, his hands crawled across his face to cover his ears. He opened his eyes.
He opened his eyes and understood why he could still hear them, why wings still pounded with the rhythm of his heart even though the flaming bird was gone. Butterflies. Thousands upon thousands of hell butterflies soaring into the sky, a black, writhing mass rising from the empty patch of air where Rukia's body had been held before the scaffold. They darkened the heavens and blocked out the sun and he was screaming for them to stop, screaming from a dire certainty that they were carrying away her soul.
Hands clasped his shoulders. A white haired shinigami was shaking him. The man's face filled Ichigo's vision and his voice rose above the cacophony to say, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The portal was closed and gone and he was alone on the wrong side of it. Alone, but not alone. He walked to his home in silence, climbed in his window so not to wake anyone. Alone, but not alone. Failure, despair, shame, defeat, anguish, grief danced around him, circling like vultures, not yet sated with the havoc they had wreaked on his soul and waiting to pick his flesh and bones. Carrion birds waiting to swoop and strike with dark and vast wings, the sound of beating wings booming in his ears, closing around his body and his face choking suffocating killing
Sweat-drenched sheets were wrapped around him like a serpent when he woke. He pushed them away and stumbled out of his bed. Just a dream, just a dream, he repeated over and over in his head. Nightmare, that's all, it didn't really happen, she isn't really gone. Ichigo's leg was still tangled in the sheet and he fell hard on his knee. He ignored the pain and almost fell again in his haste to reach his closet door. She's right here, she's alive, she's safe, she's home, alive, safe, didn't die, just a nightmare. The litany continued in his head. His hands shook as he slid the door open.
The closet was empty. She was gone. She was dead.
Ichigo sagged forward, resting his head where she had slept. He was completely awake now and memories lapped over him like waves.
He remembered the silence of his room as he climbed in through the window. He remembered Kon, leaning against the closet door but bolting upright as Ichigo entered, staring expectantly, waiting. Ichigo remembered closing the window behind him, back straight as he turned to face Kon but unable to meet the mod soul's button eyes. He remembered Kon twitching once, jerking as through he had been struck, and then shuffling out of the room as quickly as his small legs could carry him. Kon still hadn't spoken to him.
Ichigo remembered opening his closet door for the first time, seeing the things he had placed there before he left. Yuzu's plaid pajamas, freshly washed and folded as neatly as he could manage. A new toothbrush, still in plastic packaging. An extra blanket for when the nights grew colder. He remembered how much it hurt to be reminded of his failure in such a small and sad way, how much it hurt to see that his certainty of rescuing her was nothing but childish over-confidence.
He remembered his mother. The nightmares had been the same just after she died. He'd see everything in excruciating detail in his dream and wake certain that it was only a dream. It took bursting through his parent's bedroom door and finding his father alone for him to remember she was really gone. Ichigo wondered how long it would take with Rukia, how long before he could wake up without searching for her.
He climbed into his closet, settling into her bed. He had moved the pajamas and toothbrush into a drawer; it was too hard to see them every day. He curled up on the mat and pulled the blanket around himself. It was cramped for someone of Ichigo's height, but he didn't mind. It was her place.
Ichigo closed his eyes even though he knew he wouldn't sleep again that night.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air...
-- George Gordon, Lord Byron; "Darkness"