Catch-22 (A vicious cycle)
Her eyes were playing tricks on her. A little angry that they should, she blinked twice then counted silently to ten. It was a method of calming oneself down, she had learned it from the living world.
It- no, he. For she had no lack of respect toward the one standing so motionlessly rather it was the way his well-remembered, known and dare she think it- green eyes lifted. Her breath felt quite taken away. She was even more angry with herself moments after the fact.
"What are you doing here?" She walked forward, twigs snapping underfoot of her waraji sandals. Careless grace in spare, elegant motions drew the full tilt of his body toward her. And those- damnable eyes. They made her feel weak, locking them with her amethyst violet.
Her expression could be haughty, arrogant.
Yet her eyes- he had said always, through them he could see her weakness(heart).
"What do you think is my purpose for coming here?" With that, the proverbial ball was sent right back into her court. Instead of answering with a dry throat and suddenly empty list of ideas some of them even made her smirk inside.
Yeah...maybe a one-Arrancar mission to destroy Soul Society?
Was one.
But, her mind, traitorous to the last like the irregular thud-thump of her heart insisted something else. "I don't know." She admitted, letting her gaze linger along the narrow, svelte plains of his face, the perfect black pointed tips of his hair. You're supposed to be dead- reality intruded on her study. Rukia pushed the thought away violently like a physical hit she was known for.
But, she was still blunt to the last. "Ichigo said you turned to ash." No accusation. Just the facts, sir. Feelings aside, she felt numbness then. No one suspected a thing. All for the better, she had told herself.
"You didn't cry?" The vaguest hint of a smirk curled one half of the bi-colored lips. He was always so damned smug, part of what angered her and drew her to him like a candle flame to a bat- no, wait, isn't it a moth to a candle flame?
Rukia couldn't decide.
"Shut up." She growled, looking anywhere but at him.
At him and those impossibly emerald eyes that were her downfall. Still are.
"You believed I would fall to the worthless Kurosaki from the beginning." The mocking tone had lessened for that she was secretly glad of. Yet his eyes still bore into her. Unrelenting. Mercilessly inhuman.
"It couldn't work." Rukia said more to herself. Can't- her mind supplied the change.
His eyes rested on her face, calling her.
Stubborn, she turned the other cheek. Presenting the stony, frigid mask of pride to the world. "We're too different. You and..I." Her violets closed. Yet in other ways...we're just the same. Rukia knew it so well. As well as breathing as known as every inch of his being. She bit her lip, forcing herself to go on.
"We're the same...following the paths fate has decreed us. Never changing. Never yielding because of fear." Fear of breaking the greatest taboo.
"What are you afraid of...Rukia?" Her name fell quietly from his lips.
In another moment, she knew the underbrush would be crashed through and Renji would be at her heels. Once the moment had passed, she would alone again under the starry sky at the edge of the Rukon forest.
Rukia wished she could hold the moment for all eternity.
Not pretend his hand wasn't extended as an offer.
An offer, her heart pounding within her fragile frame, wanted so desperately to take.
She shut her eyes. "Myself."
She was.
Of the order one day she would carry out because she lacked the strength to break their vicious cycle.
-Fin
Disclaimer: don't own Bleach.
AN: As mentioned in the summary. Challenge of sorts from Maria of the DA club to us at the FC on Bleach asylum. Thanks for reading! Set: post winter war.
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