I read a certain story by a certain Fuzzibunniez (dunno if i spent that right), which kind of inspired this little fic. Just so we are all clear, in my little world, Ichigo never had to use the final Getsuga to defeat Aizen, as was planned. He just beat up Aizen until the Hougyoku refused to see him as its' master. He still has his super-awesome-godly Byakuya is female. Sorry, I'm just not comfortable writing yaoi, not just yet. Now, on with the skippable prologue!
Fate is a word a lot of people use. They use it to describe events that are so unlikely that it would seem nearly impossible, except for the fact that it happens all the time. Like tossing a bottle into the air, and it landing the right way up. Or a man walking into his own funeral, because his family identified a doppelganger as him. Or two people, who just happen to cross paths, and then live happily ever after. When they fall for one another, they say it was something special, that it was predestined by an old, archaic power, never to remember the thousand other people they might have bumped into that day, or the million over a lifetime, or the fact that people fall in love like this all the time. A random encounter, a dropped stack of papers, a wrong number, a common factor. Anyone here seen the movie Serendipity? A beautiful accident, where the word accident really means predestined happiness.
This might sound cynical, and thank you for listening for so long, but my point is that this common factor, this randomness that has to have been predetermined, it was not fate. It was never fate. Not as we understand it. Fate is just a thing humans think up, a rationalisation, a 'noumenal' product of our own thoughts.
And that is just it. Who threw the bottle to make it stand up? Who walked into the funeral, or better yet, who was it that thought they saw their loved one on a slab in a morgue? Who looked into a beautiful womans eyes and just knew that they were the one they were going to grow old with? We do.
We control our fate. It is our innumerable idiosyncrasies, desires and aesthetic principles that decide who we fall in love with, even if we do not make the decision knowingly. Of course we are going to fall for that one girl. We had already decided that we were a long time ago. We couldn't help it. She was, is, and always will be the one. This misnomer of 'Fate' can be summarized as our own disbelief that what we want, what we have always wanted, has happened, even as unlikely as we think it may have been. Something must have caused it, something greater, right?
So, toss a coin ten times. Test your luck. If it only lands heads up, look around. You may find the eyes that you have always been looking for. It could happen, right?
Oh, and if it lands on tails the whole time? Duck.
It might sound strange that my story is called 'It Can Only Have Been Fate', and then me try to discredit the whole thing, especially when the events that will take place in the opening chapters are so unlikely that it appears a higher power must have been at work.
But why can't that higher power be us?
Why can't that power be...
Ichigo finishes his apple and tosses it into the bin by the side of the pond. Not a bad shot from the roof of Ukitakes' office. Swish.
He has been waiting for nearly two hours for that damn midget to finish her business with her captain, and it was starting to get cold. He would have left for better cover and warmth, but because this was the only place the two third seats had failed to look, he thought he might just stay. To avoid their overly-generous hospitality, as it were.
To keep himself amused, he had been flash-stepping to the 13th division kitchens, to grab a bite to eat. His new abilities made it so that he could be in and out of there within the blink of an eye, without any of the staff noticing. He had the chance to dip his finger in the stew that was being prepared for tonight. He opted out for an apple.
So there he sat, occasionally stealing fruit to keep his spiritual energy up, watching as the sun slowly set, changing colours from blue, through the visible spectrum, to the darkness it now was.
His thoughts - which had started, naturally, with the state of the world, the Seireitei, the Gotei 13 and it's makeshift allies and what would happen to their improvised relationships - had turned to another matter, slightly more trivial but much more important to the continued existence of mankind.
Girls.
Or ladies, if they like. Women if they don't. Whatever. More important than this Collective Noun to Ichigo were the Proper Nouns. As in names. As in Orihime and Rukia. And Matsumoto. Well, she didn't really count, but he did know that with his older body, a lot of the women in Soul Society had swooned at his appearance (if that was the appropriate verb), and if he wanted to, her might be in with a shot.
...Not that he would. It's just that, well, he was more adult-like, now, and hey, isn't that the kind of thing that adult guys do? Isn't it suppose to be really masculine? Macho? Manly? If he wanted to, he could hump her brains out!... But, on second thoughts, I probably shouldn't. I would totally rock her world and everything, but I should let the other ladies think they are in with a chance. It's not that I'm not that kind of guy, because I could totally be that guy. But it's not my thing. I mean, it is my thing, but not in that way.
Ichigo mentally coughed, and forced himself to reason with himself later. Compartmentalized, he got back on to mental track, with the two big names that meant a lot to him, but with completely different intonations.
On one hand, there was Inoue. He knew that she liked him. It was obvious, really, but it took him a little figuring out, especially to see things in context. For a while, unless it was really important, she could barely talk to him. There were a thousand little hints that he could notice now, mainly because Tatsuki had pointed them out to him.
On the other hand, there was Rukia. The midget who had changed his life forever. He really had no clue if she liked him or not, but there was a special place reserved for her. Where that place was, and the implications it had were another confused issue to him. Did he like her? That is to say, like? Did he chase after her, straight to the SS, because she was a friend about to be executed, or because he couldn't imagine life without her?
And what about Inoue? The excursion to Hyuko Mundo was perilous, but was the goal Orihimes' safety, or her love, instead?
Rukia tends to hit me a lot. Orihime cries around me a fair bit. Rukia seems to know me better. I've known Inoue for years. Rukia's a Shinigami, but hey, so am I now, right? So where do I want to spend the next hundred years? And who with?
Rukia...
Orihime...
Rukia... Orihime...Rukia. Orihime. Rukia, Orhime, Rukia, Orihime, Rukia Orihime Rukia Orihime !
Exasperated, he falls back onto the roof, where he was slightly hovering. Smacking his head on the tiles, he comes to a conclusion; making a decision like this should not be difficult. If he loved either one of them, fully, unconditionally and all that, then the answer would be simple. Making a move when he wasn't fully committed was a bad idea.
While trying to think of a better thing to do with the Japanese Major League tickets he'd won, he spotted a light in the sky. It was moving, slowly, and getting brighter. After a few seconds, there was a slight, blue glow around it, but by the time he realised that it was the kido barrier around Seireitei holding it off, it was too late, as the barrier burst, with the sound of shattering glass.
And he was off towards the place where it would impact. He had no idea about what was coming, so going up to meet it was a 'no'. Ichigo was using his full non-Bankai speed, which was much improved since recent events, but the object was moving with speed beyond him. It was all he could do, pushing his muscles to the limits, shunpo-ing at speed that many would find impossible, just to be at the site where it would land.
Or crash, as he was just realising, a second before the hunk of glowing red thing hit the ground. It was, of course, going at speeds much too fast to to slow down in, what one might call, a safe way. For both itself and others.
As he braced for the rubble that would be thrown up in the objects (asteroid? meteorite?) collision nearly ten metres away, he glaced to the source of intruding reiatsu. To his left, in her captains haori, stood-
'Byakuya? What the-
BOOM!
The day is done, she thinks, sinking the last part of her paperwork into the bottom draw. Abarai had long since left her to go to a lieutenants meeting (party, more like), and she had to finish the days work alone in her office, with just the sounds of the night staff to accompany the scratch of pen on paper.
Finally, she allowed herself some procrastination time, just to watch the sun setting into a sea of clouds. And how magnificent it was. How beautiful it appeared. How radiant, how brilliant, how resplendent, how-
'How am I to continue, Hisana?'
It had been years ago. It really had.
But to a broken heart, time is little comfort. With each passing second, the gap between former lovers grows. The memories of a cherished time become distant, not connected to yourself like they once were, like watching a TV where the picture is in black and white, and the tuning is slowly getting further and further away from being right. Insert sad, angsty metaphor here.
And only last night had one of the more daring elders subtly hinted at attempting to continue the Kuchiki heritage and bloodline. However, there was only one person who she had wanted to do that with, and that was, quite frankly, impossible.
It was not as if she hadn't given any thought to the matter, if she were to be inclined to listen to their reasoning. If she were to enforce the Kuchiki line, so to speak, she would have many... options available to her, should she so choose. However, the problem was not in the choice, but the reason to choose. She was a proud individual. She saw herself as an example to countless people. If she chose to propagate out of survival, then they would have the same excuse to. No, love should be for loves sake, not old men sitting in dark rooms deciding what alliance would work best for them.
And this was the crux of her problem. She lacked Hisana. The one person in all her life she had let in to her heart. And no-one was as special as Hisana, she thought. Not. A. One.
But... maybe, just maybe, the smallest part of Byakuya hoped. It was always there, really, behind layers of cynicism and pride. Wanting something like the image on the screen of her mind. Who wouldn't want that?
And it was a few minutes later, when she was trying to decide where a reputable establishment to make new relationships, or a 'hotspot to pick up', as the youth of today might just call it, would be, when something red, hot and glowing shot through the sky.
And stopped.
And glowed blue. And there was the sound of breaking glass.
And she was off, at a speed that would have made Yoruichi proud, to where she predicted the penetrating object was to land... or crash, she realised, as she reached the site. Whatever it was, it was not going to decelerate by any amount. Well, before it came to an abrupt halt.
It was about then she began thinking about collateral damage, and doing anything she could to minimise it. It was right after she started checking for reiatsu that she found a huge mass of spirit particles to her right, which could only be-
'Byakuya? What the-
She had less time to react than it takes to create this metaph-
BOOM!
Wow, that was a long first chapter! I promise, they get smaller. Which might not even be a good thing. Anyway, this is being released as part of a series of fics that I have been working on. I want to see which ones get the most interest, then concertrate on those ones. So, if you think this is a fave of yours, review, pm, 'teva! Anywho, see you next time, peeps!