Dear Rukia,
Fuck, I miss you.
I promised myself that I would not let myself feel like this again. We promised ourselves, but somehow I don't think you're holding up your end of the bargain too well either. I miss you.
I'm here, studying to be a fucking doctor when all I dream of at night is the battlefield.
Sometimes I wonder, do I deserve to save when I have taken away so many lives? We never thought about these things when we were younger, we didn't care enough.
Is it that bad that whenever I dream of all that blood and destruction, the terror of a blade pushing against my skin and having no weapon to defend myself, it's always you that saves me, and not Orihime?
I wish it was still you and me in that cabin in the blizzard. Us against the world, like always, with our friends behind us.
I wish you had never left.
Ichigo
The name was not completely unfamiliar to Kazui, but his father had never liked talking about her.
He sat in the dusty archives of his father's study, letting a whirlwind of papers and lost memories slowly absorb themselves into his skin. The winter sunlight struck the dust particles floating in the air and for a moment, it looked like it was snowing.
He'd wondered who Rukia was, for many years. She was always present like an after thought, an invisible being that he knew had been important to both his parents but they never spoke openly about her— whenever his mother or either of his uncles Uryū and Sado brought her up, his father seemed to retreat in his shell, hiding from something that Kazui had no idea about.
And now he knew why: his father had been in love with her.
Kurosaki Ichigo had passed away less than a day ago in his sleep, quietly and next to his wife of fifty odd years. Kazui had known him as a protector, someone who terrified the shadows and had a streak of endless kindness and love behind his ever-present scowl. The person who had taught him how to ride a bike, who picked him up when he scraped his knees, and a constant pillar of strength through difficult times.
And now Kazui was his heir; the inheritor of these half-formed and disintegrating legacies.
He knew that there had been a war, some terrible and encompassing war that had happened on a completely different plane of existence— he knew that there were things beyond this world and most imaginations, but the time he lived in had been peaceful.
His father told him stories not of war-heroes, but of those that sacrificed themselves for others; names like Ukitake Jūshiro, Kuchiki Byakuya, Ichimaru Gin. He was taught that even those who seem evil have their own stories, that the light is not always divided into black and white, but the shadows under your bed can sometimes too, be a kind of light in itself.
"Still hiding in your father's study?" a voice came from behind him. He half turned, to see the visitor more clearly.
"Did you know?" he asked simply, throwing a hand out to the bundle of letters scattered on the floor. "Did my mother know about any of this?"
She drifted along to where he was sitting, the dust moving through her like the way a silk screen ripples when a wind blows across it. Even though she was practically translucent but for her faint outline, he could tell that her expression was wary, wondering if he was angry about the entire situation.
When she had determined that he was not in fact, angry, but just weary, she responded: "I knew about it. I think to some extent, your mother did as well, but she never brought it up. You were happy, your whole family was. Why bring up some past love to spoil it?"
Deep down, somehow he knew that this Rukia was not just a past love. She had lived in the secret twinkles of his father's eyes, the tinge of sadness that crossed his smile when he looked at his wife, the faded blue dress tucked away in the corner of the attic. She had lived.
"You're right," he admitted, and gathered up the letters; the sun had set so quickly in the few minutes that the light was no longer right for reading.
Most of the guests from the wake last night had gone home, only his mother, his two aunts and honorary uncles sat in the living room, talking quietly. His mother looked like she had aged twenty years in a day, the silver in her hair streaking the light orange and her hands were trembling slightly.
Coming down from the stairs, his Uncle Sado gave him a smile that was so filled with sadness and comfort that he felt like a child again, crying over the death of a loved pet.
"She's here," he heard his mother say. "Kazui, would you get the door, please?"
The doorbell had not been rung, neither had a car pulled up in front of their house, but he knew better than to question his mother's instincts. She had the uncanny knack of making plants grow better than they usually would, and for healing scrapes and bruises in a minute or two. It was a magic that he had never questioned.
Padding lightly towards the door, a gentle knock sounded, and he had the door open in a minute or two.
On the doorstep was a petite woman with hair so soft and dark that it seemed to glitter with a life of its own, wrapped warmly in wool and fur and a pale pink scarf. She looked up at him, and her eyes glinted purple.
"Kurosaki Kazui," she said, in a voice that seemed to conjure images of ebony and steel, sheathed in silk. "I wish that we had met on a happier occasion."
He stood numbly back as she entered the house like it was her own, taking off her heavy boots and donning the embroidered rabbit slippers that no one had used in so many years.
She laughed quietly to herself and pointed at a gouge in the wall— "It's still here?" she asked, eyes distant like she was remembering a far off dream.
And even though he did know, somewhere deep down inside him, he still had to ask.
"Sorry but— who are you?"
She turned back to look at him, and smiled gently, those purple eyes so dark they could be mistaken for black.
"I'm Kuchiki Rukia."
A/N: And so it begins. Couple of things for this canon divergent story:
1. Kazui has no shinigami powers at all, the most he can do is see ghosts.
2. Ichigo & Rukia have never met since Kazui's birth.
3. Kazui doesn't know the full extent of his parents' past (which, of course is the point of exploration in this fic).
