Characters: Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Ishida, Sado, Isshin, Yuzu, Karin.
Pairings: None, really, unless you really want to read into the character interactions, in which case, you'll find the usual culprits.
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Author's Note: Ah, yet another out of season holiday fic. Extremely out of season. Also, with Sado, since Ichigo is the only one who calls him "Chad" (and Sado correcting him the first time he called him that really indicates—to me at least—that he doesn't think of himself as Chad), the only time Sado is referred to Chad in this oneshot is when it's from Ichigo's perspective, so it'll switch around a bit. Finally, this could basically be a rather long omake. As such, I don't expect you to take it very seriously.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Rukia had started it. It was clear to all parties involved that Rukia had started it. She was the one who had pressed together the first snowball, and she was the one who had hit Ichigo upside the mouth with it—reached up and smashed it in his face, in fact.

Karakura Town had received an especially deep snow that year, and Rukia was using it as an excuse to perform her favorite peacetime activity: to drive Ichigo batty.

No one was quite sure why Rukia had done it. It wasn't like Ichigo needed that much of a provocation to be incited into snowball violence, especially when it was Rukia who wound him up; Rukia always knew just what buttons to push, and at times, she pushed all of them at once.

Everyone, Ishida and Orihime from another part of the Kurosaki's back yard and Isshin, Sado, Yuzu and Karin stared at the pair from the porch to see what Ichigo would do next. Dead silence fell over the yard, everyone gaping wide-eyed at the scene. Rukia had a mischievous grin on her face, Ichigo a look of growing comprehension.

"Rukia." Ichigo's voice was surprisingly calm as he wiped the snow away from his mouth, brushing some more off of his coat. "If that was a declaration of war, then I accept."

Rukia's toothy grin widened.

The snowball fight to end all snowball fights had begun.

.x.X.x.

Meanwhile, in another part of the Kurosaki's back yard…

"Okay, so you want to build a snowman?"

Orihime smiled brightly and nodded. "Yes. It's a family tradition; my brother and I would do it every winter."

Ishida sighed, and surveyed the yard around him. Ichigo and Rukia were in the middle of what looked very much like a duel to the death in terms of snowballs; it was difficult to say, but Rukia appeared to be winning. Everyone else was on the porch, Isshin shouting encouragement (Really? Ishida thought sardonically. Somehow, I don't see how what you're suggesting will help Kurosaki win.), and Sado showing Ichigo's two little sisters the inner workings of a guitar.

"Well, since Kurosaki and Kuchiki-san are in the middle of something, and everyone else is engaged, I guess it will just be the two of us." Something occurred to Ishida; that something made him feel more than a little apprehensive about agreeing to assist Orihime in the construction of her snowman. "Inoue-san, how big did you say you wanted this snowman?" he asked gingerly.

Orihime held up a hand to where it was just below the crown of her head. "About to here," she replied innocently.

Ishida gaped at her. "You want a five-foot tall snowman?"

"That's right."

Yes, of course. Ishida grimaced while Orihime wasn't looking. Well, you did say you'd help. And no one ever said Inoue-san was particularly reasonable when it comes to this stuff. "This is gonna take awhile," he mumbled.

.x.X.x.

In retrospect, if Ichigo had known just how fast Rukia was at making and firing snowballs, he might have thought twice about rising to her challenge and getting into a snowball fight with her. But he would win.

Ichigo wasn't about to let Rukia win. It may have just been a matter of pride, but he was going to stick to his guns and come out of that snowball fight with his dignity relatively intact, even if it killed him.

But he had a problem. He couldn't find Rukia anywhere. Ichigo had gone around the side of the clinic, where there were a few trees. He'd seen Rukia running that way, but she had vanished. Ichigo wondered briefly if she'd climbed to the roof.

Ohh, it's never good when they disappear right out from under your nose. Ichigo leaned against the trunk of an oak tree, his arms folded across his chest as he huffed and puffed, the intense cold making his cheeks and nose as red as they would be if he had a cold. I have to find her, and quick, too.

"Oh, I-chigo?" The singsong voice, smug as a cat with a mouse, above head made Ichigo's blood run cold. At the same time, it was about as annoying as any earworm he had ever heard. He looked up.

Rukia sat on one of the boughs of the naked oak tree directly overhead, swinging her legs back and forth like a child on a swing set. There was a blue plastic bucket, clearly taken from inside the clinic, sitting on her lap and she was wearing an expression that could only be described as the incarnation of evil.

"Rukia?" Ichigo asked nervously. "What have you got in that bucket?"

"Stand still and find out."

"You wouldn't dare—"

She tipped the bucket over.

Ichigo hit the ground.

With a high peal of laughter, Rukia launched herself out of the tree and started running back towards the back yard, to set up a new base and initiate a new assault.

As Ichigo struggled to his feet, he realized he had been wrong.

Rukia hadn't had ice water in that bucket. Just more snow.

Ichigo picked up the bucket and started to follow the small tracks Rukia's footprints had made in the snow. Someone was going down that day.

.x.X.x.

Ichigo put the bucket back on the porch, with a muttered, "Please don't let Rukia get her hands on this again," to his dad, before starting to scout out the yard looking for her, so they could resume their little war.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's genuinely confused voice reached his ears. Ichigo turned round.

Orihime and Ishida were in the process of getting the bottom tier of the snowman they were making constructed. Orihime had paused and stared at him, her eyes wide as she surveyed him from head to foot.

Ishida stood up, and frowned, a slightly incredulous look coming over his face. "What happened to you?" The question was spoken in a mixture of disbelief and shock; both he and Orihime gaped at him.

Ichigo brushed some of the snow off of his shoulders. "Don't ask. Have either of you seen Rukia come through here?"

Ishida nodded. "Yes. Kuchiki-san is somewhere in this yard." He peered around, eyes narrowing behind the clear lenses of his glasses. "I couldn't tell you where, exactly, though." Involuntarily, his eyes momentarily flicked to the car in the driveway; he hoped Ichigo didn't notice. Ishida had seen Rukia go running behind the car, and had no intention of telling Ichigo that.

"'Kay, thanks." Ichigo started to walk off, but stopped, and stared disbelievingly at the bottom tier of the snowman Ishida and Orihime were working on. "That's a…um, pretty big snowman you two are going for."

Orihime had moved back to packing snow on to the bottom tier with gusto. Ichigo could resist a small twitch of the lip with amusement as Ishida's gloved fingers went to the right hand frame of his glasses. "Yeah."

Ichigo smirked. "And how big is this supposed to be in the end?"

Ishida looked away. "Five feet," he muttered, chagrin evident in his voice. "Inoue-san's idea, not mine."

A small laugh replaced the smirk. "You idiot. How'd you get roped into this?"

"I have no idea." At the sound of a small rustling sound, Ishida smirked inexplicably; Ichigo frowned in confusion. "Kurosaki? If I were you, then right about now, I'd duck."

"Wh—"

It was at this point that Ichigo was pelted in the back by three snowballs, in quick succession.

He whirled around. Rukia was roaring with laughter, waving wildly from behind his dad's car, with another snowball in hand. That snowball narrowly missed striking Ichigo clean in the center of the forehead.

Ichigo tore towards her, scooping up a lump of snow as he did so.

The war was on again.

.x.X.x.

Snow had started to fall again. Orihime was distracted from making the snowman for all of a minute and a half, trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue. Ishida watched her with a small, indulgent smile on his face before she got back to working on the snowman.

The second tier was nearly done, and she and Ishida were in the final processes of packing a final layer on the top of the middle tier, and rounding it out to make it somewhat symmetrical in terms of roundness.

Orihime stared down at the sphere for a moment. It was probably about as round as anything would get, and it was just the right amount smaller than the other sphere. She looked up at Ishida. "I think this is good, don't you?" Orihime's voice was uncharacteristically serious, but then again, she'd always been serious about her snowmen.

Ishida agreed with her. They crouched down, and put their hands under opposite sides of the sphere (It was large and heavy). "Okay, one the count of three, right?"

"Right," Orihime affirmed.

"One…two…three."

They picked up the heavy snow sphere, and with painstaking slowness, started to edge towards the bottoms sphere.

Everything was going smoothly. So very smoothly.

Until…

Orihime watched in undisguised shock as a snowball rocketed out of nowhere and hit Ishida on the side of the head; she was amazed his glasses didn't go flying off of his face from the force of impact when his neck snapped back and forth.

It put them off-balance.

"Oh, no!"

They keeled dangerously from side to side, and just as Orihime thought they were going to be alright…they fell over.

Orihime landed on her back, Ishida on his stomach. The giant snow abdomen of their snowman hit the ground—and cleanly split in two.

Orihime stared at it and sighed, and wondered if there was any way to fix it without major surgery.

Ishida, of course, knew exactly who to blame.

"KUROSAKI!" Lying on his stomach with his face coated in snow made Ishida's scream much less intimidating than it would have been had he been standing up.

As they stood up and started dusting themselves off, Ichigo shouted back, "Sorry! Help me if you want this to stop!"

"Not on your life!"

"What, has your aim failed?"

Orihime could instantly tell that Ichigo should not have said that. Ishida got a dangerously calm expression on his face, face perfectly composed. With a meticulousness bordering on primness, he took off his gloves and started to walk towards the depression in the street that led to the storm drain, where ice water filtered through, going downhill. "Excuse me for a moment," he murmured.

"Ishida-kun?" Orihime called after him, nervously. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing."

Ishida took a lump of snow and fashioned it into as round a snowball as he could manage. Then, he stuck it into the ice water, making sure it was thoroughly soaked. After shaking his hands dry, Ishida put his gloves back on. Finally, he got a fresh layer of snow and packed it over the frozen solid snowball.

Orihime watched in apprehension as Ishida eyed the snowball for a moment, scoped out Ichigo's position, took aim, and fired.

The snowball hit home, and struck Ichigo clean on the back of the head.

"What the heck is this? A hailstone?"

Ishida smirked. "Never underestimate the aim of a nerd who's been handling a bow and arrow since he was old enough to walk," he muttered under his breath.

Orihime rolled her eyes, and cracked a smile. "Done?"

Ishida adopted a satisfied smile. "Done. Now, where were we?"

.x.X.x.

The Kurosaki family car had just become the latest casualty in the Ichigo-Rukia snowball fight. It was a blue car that now looked much closer to white.

Isshin's screams of "Don't you dare put one dent on that car!" did nothing to deter either of them. They were snowballs. What damage were they going to do?

The strains of Chad's guitar reached Ichigo's ears. At least he was keeping Karin and Yuzu entertained.

Ichigo had lost sight of Rukia again. That, he knew, was a bad mistake to make.

"Come on, Rukia, where are you? Why don't you fight like a man?"

"For your information, Ichigo—" the voice sounded directly behind him, clear and calm "—I'm not a man." A mitten-clad hand gripped Ichigo's shoulder. "I'm a woman. And I will fight like one."

It was at that point that Rukia dumped a handful of snow down the back of Ichigo's shirt.

"OH, GOOD LORD, THAT'S COLD!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Ichigo heard Ishida mumble from across the yard; he and Orihime were on the verge of finishing their snowman.

"Do I need to throw another snowball that way?" Ichigo threatened.

"Not if you want to live."

Ichigo needed to focus on beating down Rukia with snowballs anyway.

.x.X.x.

"Okay, I think it's finished."

Ishida took a step back to survey their work.

Branches had been found for the arms; pebbles for the eyes, mouth and nose, since they both figured there probably wasn't a carrot anywhere in the Kurosaki's home. Given Ishida's thing about buttons, they had left that out.

Orihime frowned at him. "It still needs a hat."

"Really?" Ishida asked gingerly; where were they going to find a top hat that someone was willing to stick on a snowman at that time of day, honestly?

"Yes," she asserted firmly.

"Okay." Ishida started to walk towards the porch. "I'll ask Kurosaki-san if he has any hats he'd be willing to donate to the cause."

.x.X.x.

Kurosaki Isshin's daughter Yuzu had directed Ishida into the house, and when they came back out, Orihime was surprised to see that no, he did not have a top hat with him.

Instead, Ishida had a cone-shaped hat that wouldn't have looked out of place on the venerable brow of Gandalf the Grey.

Upon seeing Orihime's raised eyebrow, Ishida explained himself. "There were no top hats in the house, but apparently, one of Kurosaki-san's daughters was in a school play recently."

Orihime sighed. "It'll do."

At the very moment the hat was put on, Ichigo, who had been running past, was hit full force by one of Rukia's snowball barrages, and tottered dangerously towards the snowman.

"Don't you dare!" Ishida shrieked, and barreled directly into Ichigo to keep him from knocking over the snowman.

The expected result occurred.

Seeing them lying in the snow, Orihime giggled. "You both look so funny," she addressed them, Ichigo flat on his back, Ishida on his face, both deep in the snow.

"You know," she heard Ishida's muffled voice through a mouthful of snow, "this is the second time, just this afternoon, that I've been flat on my face in the snow."

"This would be my third," Ichigo commiserated. "And you know, if we could just get Rukia to give up already, we wouldn't have these problems."

"For once, I am in total agreement with you, Kurosaki."

"Glad to hear it."

.x.X.x.

Sado and Orihime decided to sit on the porch and watch the fireworks as they erupted.

Ichigo and Ishida teamed up against Rukia.

And the balance tipped the scales again when Isshin, Karin and Yuzu joined the snowball fight—on Rukia's side.

Ishida and Ichigo looked at each other for a long moment, and then did the only sensible thing left that they could do.

They dropped their snowballs and ran.