Hey… me again, after two weeks again. Thank whatever gods you want for Bookaholic711 and her project PULL. If it didn't exist, I wouldn't get anything done. Check it out at Bookaholic711's profile if you're interested.
This is just a simple story, really – Post-423 oneshot, one that actually is NOT depressing. Reviews are always greatly appreciated (hint, hint).
But, most of all, enjoy.
~ Rain ~
It was raining again. Water poured from the sky, lakes of sorrow and rivers of tears. It dripped from the trees, seeping into his jacket, until, finally, it touched his heart, a gently caress of cold sorrow. He shrugged it off, because it didn't matter; no rain could compare to the ocean of sorrow within him, the pain and loss that would never go away.
He walked down empty streets and deserted alleys that overflowed with the water that fell from the heavens, aimless, wandering, alone in a world full of rain. His head was low, his shoulders bowed, shoes scuffing at the dirt as he went. He was… empty. Alone. Abandoned. Useless. For all he knew, they could be around him, even now, watching him, and he raised an arm, just in case they were – but he knew, in his heart, they would never truly return, because he would never truly feel them. They would come, and they could not speak to him, they could not touch him, they could not know him. They would just watch, and remember the time that they could, a day so long ago, a day when the rain did not fall.
He turned, and suddenly the alley was full of boys, grinning, leering, laughing boys, jeering in derision at him. He wanted to laugh, it was so bitterly ironic. What were mere men to him now? He had fought the Espada, the embodiments of death, and he had triumphed. He had battled the greatest being alive, a creature that had its every last desire made reality. He had given his power, his identity, his soul, to protect the town he loved and the people that lived in it, and the same beings he had given everything up in order to protect would take the pale imitation of it, the only thing he had left.
"Yo, Kurosaki." The man grinned lopsidedly, the ridiculous gold chain still hanging from his crooked nose. "Remember us?"
"'Course, Weasel," he replied, a hint of the old cockiness returning to his voice as he answered. He would never forget the face of the cruel, sadistic man, the man of hatred and violence, the man that had nearly destroyed Sado for his own twisted amusement. "Last, time, though, your nose wasn't so crooked."
The man snarled in rage, and he struck out, his fist striking the orange-haired boy hard across the face, heavy rings cutting into the flesh. As his head snapped backwards, the man coldly lashed out with a knee, ramming his nose, breaking it. Blood dripped to the ground, and the boys around him laughed as he collapsed to the ground. He no longer had the strength to stand on his own, alone, away from everything he loved.
"What, done already?" Weasel stepped forward, driving his heel into Ichigo's ribs, grinding it and laughing as the fallen man grunted in pain. "No fancy kicks to get you outta trouble this time, eh?" He slammed a booted foot atop his finger, and there is a crack as it breaks, clearly audible, even above the drumming of the rain, and the boys around him laugh. "Pick him up for me, boys."
Two of the jeering boys grabbed him roughly under his arms, heaving him to his feet again. The man laughs, and he lashes out again, teeth bared in a snarl as he drove his fist into the other boy's gut, and Ichigo coughed up blood, wheezing as the air left his lungs.
"You're gonna die this time, Kurosaki, and there's nobody that's gonna come to save you this time." Another blow, and his head snapped backwards as it slams into his forehead. "What, nothing to say about that? No smart, stuck-up remarks anymore, huh?"
The boy's head was drooping, hanging down as he panted for air, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Abruptly, his teeth bared in a savage grin, a grin utterly lacking fear or uncertainty. Weasel saw it, scowled, and yanked a switchblade from his jacket. "Something funny, Kurosaki? Wanna fill us in, too?" He tossed the knife up and down, grinning ferociously as he pointed it at the various spots on Kurosaki's body, trying to decide which would hurt the most.
"Sorry, boys." Slowly, his head rose up again, and his eyes were no longer the soft-yet-hard serious eyes of Ichigo Kurosaki; they were hard gold, burning with a fierce light – the light of insanity. With a shrug, he tossed the two boys hanging to his arms aside like rag dolls, utterly without effort. They crashed into the wall and slid down again, moaning as they struck the ground, unmoving. He spat blood from his mouth, tossed his head to the sky, and laughed, a fierce, high-pitched, screaming cackle that chilled to the bone. "The King isn't in right now. He's not exactly feeling his best, if ya know what I mean."
He crouched, and then, in a flicker of motion, sprang forward, hands gripping Weasel's throat in a vice of steel, propelling him backwards, hands desperately scrabbling for a hold, before he slammed through a brick wall and three trash cans, finally sprawling on the ground of a building. He wheezed for breath, grabbing frantically at Kurosaki's shirt as the fingers tightened around his neck. The laughing face was inches from his own, laughing, and the sound sent shivers up his spine. "Remember this, you coward, for the short remainder of your life." The fingers squeeze again, and his face bulges in a desperate attempt for air. "Mess with the king, and it's me you answer to!"
He remembered the knife in his hand, and he stabbed blindly – but Kurosaki was no longer there, he was ten feet in the air, laughing as he crouched on a ceiling support. "You're… not… Kurosaki…" he manages to gasp, despite the tiny amount of air in his lungs. He brought the knife up again, but he could see it trembling, and his only answer was the screeching laughter, the mocking, scornful laugh of the truly insane.
He bolted. No fear he had ever felt compared to his terror now, a mind-numbing, heart-gripping terror that gripped at his bowels as he ran desperately from the laughter and the nightmare that laughed as it squeezed the life from his body.
A breeze, a gust of wind against his cheek – and he turned to see the grinning face, the wild eyes, the blood staining his hands. "Going somewhere?" The whisper is mocking and sibilant, threatening death with every syllable. A hand reached out, grabbed the terrified man by his hair, and casually tossed him through the ceiling.
He staggered to his feet again, bringing the tiny knife up again, heaving breath through his failing lungs. The world was spinning around him, and he breathed it in gratefully, because he knew that, in a few short minutes, he knew that he would probably never see it again. He was strong – but he had felt the power in the creature's hand, the unearthly strength that could not be denied nor fought nor fled from. There was nothing he could do but wait to die.
It stepped from the shadows, and even though Weasel was the one with the blade, he stepped back. "Who – no, what are you? Who is the king?" He shouted the questions to the grim figure of death in front of him, a grinning avatar of darkness, desperately trying to understand what was happening to him even as his death approached.
"Why bother explaining it to a dead man?" Suddenly, Weasel was in the air, and the vice was back around his throat, and the amber eyes are inches from his own. No, not amber – these eyes were hard gold, and they are black, not white, filled with contempt. "The King would leave you alive – he doesn't like killing." The smile and the laughter were gone, leaving only cold hatred in its place. "But I'm not the King. He's a better man that either of us will ever be, and when you strike to kill him like a coward, like an animal in the darkness, you pay the price, Weasel."
The world blurred around him as the fingers tightened for a last time, and all he could see was the golden eyes, the eyes that did not waver with the slightest bit of remorse as they throttle the life from him. "See you in hell, Weasel Yokochini."
And the world around him slowly fades into white.
He sits atop the skyscraper again, the horizontal slash across the cloudy skies, watching dully as the rain falls again. He doesn't know how he got there, or why he's there, and he doesn't really care, either. It's been a long time since he cared about what happened to him – an eternity, really, because without purpose, time has no meaning.
"Hello again, King."
He turns, and his eyes widen as he sees the white hair, the white skin, the golden eyes. But the creature before him no longer wears the robes of the Shinigami; instead, he wears a simple jacket and a pair of jeans, bleached white, of course, because it doesn't have to change. Why would he change something that worked so well for him in the past?
"You – you're – you're – "
"Oh, quit babbling. I've always been here, and I always will be, no matter how many times you try to lose me. I don't ditch so easy, Ichigo." For the first time since he has known this being, there is no insanity in his eyes; there is only concern and annoyance. "What're you doing, King?"
He makes a noise of derision, turning away to stare across the skies again. "You know what happened as well as I do. I used the last Getsuga." The sorrow in his voice is palpable, but the hollow doesn't take that as an answer; he just scowls, because that it who he is, and nothing will ever change that.
"I didn't ask you what you did. I asked you what you're doing, King. You've given up. You've stopped fighting. Did you think that if you died, everything would be better?"
"Something like that." There is no real belief in his words – there is just weary indifference, and that is worse than rages or tears, because without passion, you cannot do anything to change the world around you.
"What, you stupid or something? We have a life here, on this sorry little planet, and I'm not gonna let you throw it away 'cause you're feeling down in the dumps. Got it?"
He turns to look at his other half, something akin to curiosity stirring in the depths of those dead eyes. "How'd you stay here, anyways? Why didn't you disappear with old man Zangetsu?"
He snorts in derision, wondering again why he was bothering to reason with this poor addled fool. "I'm a part of you, the deepest, darkest, most hideous part, the part that gets locked up because nobody wants to have them around. You get to run around and kill everyone, and I sit in here and watch the rain fall until you need me." He snorts in disdain, leaning back against the window of the building. "Remind me – why is it that you're the one that's depressed?" He rolls his eyes, and glances slyly at the other part of his soul. "Really, I don't know why I bothered coming back here. I had your body, you were happy to sit in your soul chamber and waste away – it's everything I've been hoping would happen for years. Pisses me off sometimes – why do I have to be the darkest part of a soul that's got no darkness?" He snorts again – he's making a habit of that now – and casually drives a hand through the window.
"They left me. They left us," he corrects himself, turning to the yawning hollow drilling holes in the side of the building. "You expect me just to go on after that?"
"You really are an idiot, you know." He picks at his teeth with a shard of glass, squinting at Ichigo. "You really thought they just left you here? Not only stupid – you're too caught up in your own self-pity to notice that they've always been with you." He scowled and glared at his reflection in the glass. "That annoying little girl keeps sitting with you at night, the black-haired one with the blue eyes. She cries, every night, and it pisses me off, really. So much noise, and then it just rains more here. I hate the rain." He makes a fist and shatters the reflection, and grins at the shattered remains, before turning back to look at the gaping orange-haired boy. "Oh, quit looking so stupid. Are you honestly surprised?"
He grimaces, and he closes his eyes, and he smiles again, for the first time in months and months. The muscles in his face aren't used to it, and they protest violently as his lips curl – but that's okay. It'll change. It is as if the hole in his chest has been filled again, the piece that was missing clicking back into its place. He turns, opening amber eyes to meet the golden ones, one grateful, the other smug. "Thank you."
The Hollow scowls again. "Shut up and get a move on it, before I take your body again and kill everyone in the town." He turns away, and Ichigo shimmers and disappears, hope once again lighted within his soul.
He is alone on the skyscraper again, and he lies back, looking up at the clouds again. The rain has finally stopped, and the clouds, though heavy, carry with them the promise of another day.
He lies on his bed, waiting, eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply. He is full again, and the loneliness has left him. He is never alone, no matter what he may think, and the thought fills him with strength. His soul, his friends, his family… they will be with him, he knows, and he remembers, and he will always know and remember.
A sigh, a whisper of wind, and his eyes turn to the window. A gust of wind blows the curtain back, carrying with it the smell of fresh rain and grass, the smell of caring and the caressing touch of the breeze. He closes his eyes, and he smiles gently, and he knows, deep down, that it is not his imagination as a gentle warmth touches his cheek.
"Hey, Rukia," he whispers.