Author's Note/Disclaimer: Don't own Bleach.

Greetings, fellow IR shippers! I've been meaning to write a Fullbring Arc IR fic, but I think I need a few more chapters to figure out exactly what's going on in the manga. In the meantime, have some drabbles. There will be fourteen in all, and I should be posting two a day.


Rukia

Parting

She had known that this was coming.

One month ago, they had learned that his powers were gone, sacrificed to save three worlds.

Three weeks ago, she had actually believed it.

Smile, Rukia, for this too will come to pass.

Two weeks ago, she had felt the last of his reiatsu fade away.

Just one week ago, she had finally accepted it.

Then why, now, when all is said and done, as she looks up into his eyes and watches his expression slowly change as she too fades away, does the pain finally threaten to overwhelm her?

No, it won't.


Uryuu

Hope

"…and three replacement needles, five spools of thread, eight packages of ramen, a leek for when Inoue-san comes to visit…"

"Wait, Ishida… are you talking to someone?"

He looked up and was about to reply that he was merely in the process of memorizing his shopping list, when he noticed that Kurosaki's expression was radically different from the glum look that he had worn over the past month.

Ah, it's hope, he thought bitterly. Hope that they've come back, or more precisely, that she's come back. That the shinigami weren't just going to treat him as a tool to be discarded the second he lost his usefulness. What a naïve idiot my friend is. Wait, why did I just think that Kurosaki is my friend?

"No," he snapped, and walked off before Kurosaki had a chance to respond.

Hmph, shinigami.