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Limbo
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Where she lay, bathed in the sparse sunlight that entered her white gilded cage, she didn't feel the warmth on her skin.
She could see it, and she knew it was there shining dimly before her face, but that was all.
Rukia wondered at it, this lack of sensation. Was it a consequence of her confinement? She didn't have anyone to talk to, and the tower itself had nothing inside it besides her own body.
Once she had listened the snap of the flags, but the sound had since silenced; static noise filling her world with only her heartbeat to disturb the stifling emptiness.
Closed off from the familiar trill of spirit energy; the tower was surrounded but isolated preventing even the sounds of birds and the rustle of leaves as the wind blew. Perhaps without her notice, she had become accustomed to the sounds and her mind had simply deemed it unnecessary and blocked it from her notice. But that didn't explain why the sun didn't feel like anything against her skin.
On days that she would lay for hours, she'd burn and sweat. On days that she didn't lie until the very last minute, the ground would be hot and her back would sizzle while the other half of her body would be half frozen, her skin as pale and as white as the floors and walls surrounding her.
Right now, it should've been the first.
Since she had woken (though she couldn't remember when she had fallen asleep), she had been there waiting to bake and boil.
It seemed that during her isolation she had adopted a masochist attitude, her desire to sense anything at all was overwhelming; to feel was to live and to live was all she wanted.
The sun – setting, rising, she couldn't tell – sat atop her face, a yellow glow behind her closed lids.
It used to calm her; getting to bathe in the sunny smile of a dying star. It was the affectionate touch of someone familiar, someone that loved her, someone that comforted her; it was a touch that said, "You're safe".
Maybe that was why it didn't surprise her then that she couldn't feel it here.
She wasn't safe.
In this building. In Soul Society. Anywhere really.
Her chest grew heavy and she sighed to ease it.
Ever since that fateful night, she knew she would never be safe. For two months, it was simply limbo, a waiting game; a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. The danger was always there, not just for her, but for Ichigo too…
The reminder of him is immediately followed by a flash of orange.
It's the color of warmth – not the flowery, superficial warmth of yellow or the intensity to burn like red, but enough to feel the heat without the fear of being destroyed in the process. Orange was a balance; it was delicate and required consistency at all costs. He epitomized that. Superficial in his pretenses as much as she was in hers, but passionate in a way that she could never hope to be.
He liked to pretend that he didn't care about anyone or anything; that he really was some punk who liked to cause trouble. But he would die to save his sisters, put his life in danger for his friends; and was consistent in his scolding of her stupidity.
The thought pulled at the corner of her lips.
It was always half his fault at the least.
Despite the fact that he always rushed in like a hero and walk out like one, he'd always sit on his bed pouting at the end of it, apparently not satisfied with saving the day. As she healed the little she could, she remembered asking him once, rather annoyed, why he had the gall to be upset – did he want to go walking around bleeding a gallon of blood onto his favorite shirt?
"It's just," he paused with a scowl as he glared petulantly through her, his hands twisting fitfully on either side of him, "you're always saving me."
"Of course, if you need saving then I'll do it, there's nothing wrong with that. We're partners remember?" Unconsciously rougher than before as if to punish him for being stupid, she made sure he was looking her in the eye as she reminded innocently, to the point that she almost sounded mournful, "If you die, whose going to feed me then?"
His scowl deepened, but the lingering look – worry, anguish? – banished, and the rain that Inoue romantically used to describe his sadness, was no longer there.
It was times like that, even when they continued to argue, that she could feel the glimpse of the sun against her cheeks, though it was probably because she was shouting herself hoarse at him.
But orange wasn't just about passion and balance, it was the color of citrus fruit: sometimes sweet and sometimes sour. It described his mood, his behavior perfectly.
On the surface, he's always sour.
Because he's surrounded by idiots: His dad, his friends, his teachers, school, a certain teddy bear mod soul, a crazy girl living in his closet. Sour. Sour. Sour. It's his default.
With his sisters though, he's sweet.
He'd never do anything to hurt them, he'd never let anyone hurt them; and he'd do anything for them. With Inoue he was sweet, though tangy was more suitable – he actually didn't like scaring people, least of all innocent, well-meaning girls like Inoue Orihime. But he wasn't sweet in the same way he was with his sisters, it was about the same way he acted around scared pluses. To his credit, he had a way with them – especially the deceased children. Not that he'd ever really admit it.
She knew it the first time with that little girl he brought flowers for in the morning, the one who was frightened off by some fools on their skateboards.
Ichigo had protected her and defended her, something Rukia doubted few people did for total strangers, least of all, dead ones.
Come to think of it, he's actually a big softie.
"Shuddup," he barked, arms crossed and looking away with a tick on his forehead.
Standing beside him, she giggled girlishly. "Oh don't be embarrassed Kurosaki-kun!"
"Would you-just-urgh! Stop using that voice!"
Holding her cheeks, and shaking herself side to side, she faked a swoon. But no one really noticed, they were too busy staring at Ichigo and whispering amongst themselves.
Normally she wouldn't want to put too much attention on herself and by extension him, but he deserved it for making her "sweet, innocent Kuchiki" mask hard to put on yesterday. Why he insisted on pushing her buttons, she had no idea.
Besides, it wasn't all her doing. Ichigo had raised enough attention on his own.
He did, after all, just save some poor kid from getting run over.
"Oh Kurosaki-kun," she continued to croon, "you'll save me too if that ever happens, riiight?"
His face reddened further before he grabbed her by the elbow to drag her away. "Shuddup, we're going to be late for class."
"Ohhh thank you Kurosaki-kun, for saving me from being tardy~"
Thinking on it now, she swore that she lived for his scowls. Though, "lived" may be too strong a word.
She had heard silly notions of how she "saved" him. Yes, she kind of did that night they first met, but she wouldn't have had to involve him in the first place if she had handled it quicker. And "making the rain stop" was never her intention, though admittedly if she could lighten his burdens she would. Still, if you asked Inoue or Tatsuki, they would say that she stopped that rain in him, made the sun shine again.
The idea though was distressing.
Was his rain similar to her cloudy day, when he couldn't feel anything and everything around him was nothing but static noise, feeling like limbo?
She hoped not, that wouldn't be a very good way to describe orange; orange was supposed to be stable – the safe color of a growing flame. It wasn't meant to die down; it was supposed to grow stronger – brighter, but it would be squished beneath the heel of a captain or lieutenant if Ichigo was still in Soul Society.
Orange, to her, was a person: Sunkissed skin, brown eyes, orange hair. It was a person she had grown dependent on: to carry out her duties, to live a seemingly normal life, to show her how the modern world worked. He was orange – reliable, stable.
Death Gods were beautiful, point: a known fact. And even as a substitute, he was certainly handsome. At just fifteen he had the determination, strength and courage to show up most of the official shinigami in Soul Society. Those traits defined orange to her: undeterred, unwavering and unbroken.
Orange was an emotion.
A tremor shook the earth, and her eyes opened just as a wall of the tower collapsed, the dust rising as a single figure stood in its ruins.
She knew that spiky hair anywhere.
In those brief seconds that her mind was processing him standing there, still breathing and having the audacity to smirk at her dumbfounded expression.
Warmth settled on her skin, and she was alive again.
"Ichigo."
Finis
A/n: The sappiness, oh the sappiness.
Feedback on how I portrayed Rukia and Ichigo would be much appreciated :)
A random prompt I came across: Describe the color orange.