Frozen in Place

Disclaimer: I quite literally own nothing but this idea. Everything else here within belongs to Tite Kubo.

Warning: This will contain spoilers from chapter 570 (and another spoiler concerning Ichigo that came a while before but I am not about to go looking up the reference for). If you are not caught up with the manga, DO NOT CONTINUE READING.

He had been frozen to the spot, halted from his desperate rush to aid the next of his comrades in battle when he had felt it. He'd already known she was here, fighting for her life and the lives of their friends just as desperately as he was, but faith and duty kept him from going to her. She could handle her own. She didn't need him there to protect her.

Yet when he'd felt her reiatsu flare up impossibly high, building to an overwhelming and heavy amount that the cold weight of it crushed him from halfway across Seritei he froze in his tracks. The world around him fell deadly silent as a frozen chill crept over the entirety of what remained of the city. Across this silent frozen world he heard her softly uttered declaration as clearly as if she were standing right behind him.

"Bankai"

Ichigo flashed towards the source, a tangled web of pride and fear welling up within him. Pride in the enormity of her new power, power he'd always known she possessed but had yet to fully harness, and fear that she was face to face against an enemy that she felt she had to release her newly acquired bankai against.

So he raced through the gale force of wind and snow and ice crystals that radiated out from his target in a deadly maelstrom that emanated from her, freezing the entire city and stopping life in itself in its tracks.

But it did not stop him.

As he got closer and felt the foreign enemy reiatsu fade away into the slowly diminishing wind around her, his fear began to abate. It was over just like that, and the fear that subsided was replaced with a desperate instinctual urge to see her. Pride in her welled him up from within, spurring him on as he desperately sought to set eyes on the manifestation of the soul he'd come to know as well as his own. It had been so long since they had seen one another; the last time having been just a single fleeting moment in the infirmary where she had seen right through his attempts at bravado like always.

They had both been weak then. Defeated. Not anymore.

He could see nothing but white through her storm, had to rely on instinct and reiatsu alone to guide him to her.

He arrived on the opposite side of what remained of her foe, the last few crystallized remains of which were vanishing into the subsiding wind when he finally saw her and instinctively made his way toward her.

"Don't move."

Yet it was the sight of her, not the coldness of her words, nor the cold power still emanating from her in waves that froze him to his spot. It was the mere sight of her, clad all in white in Bankai form, Sode no Shirayuki incarnate, which ground him to a freezing halt.

He'd heard it said that hers was the most beautiful zanpakuto of them all. He'd never really taken a closer look. Yet, among all of the feelings and thoughts he'd ever had regarding her he'd never once had the word beautiful cross his mind.

Powerful.
Irritating.
Serene.
Deadly.
Annoying.
Amazing.

He wasn't a romantic by any stretch of means but the beauty of her bankai struck him dead in the chest and froze him where he stood as he realized.

Beautiful.

His heartbeat, which had risen to an erratic pulsating during his mad dash to reach her slowed drastically at the sight of her standing, safely, powerfully, beautifully before him. He could hear it slow and beat within his chest, the only sound that could be heard within the frozen wasteland she'd enshrouded the area with.

One heartbeat.
His own.
Only his.

"Your heart…" Before he could even move she repeated herself.

"Don't move."

He stood stark still. Having read his mind that he would try to reach her upon discovering that her heart no longer beat within her chest, she finally met his gaze as the snow fell to the ground around her. Her eyes were emotionless amethyst pools, devoid of all the shine he had come to know and was able to read like an open book. The realization of the full nature of her bankai hit him as their gazes locked and he saw nothing but emptiness in her eyes.

Her bankai had frozen her body to the core.
Her heart was frozen and did not beat.
Her heart did not beat.

Her heart did not feel.

Ichigo smirked suddenly. A bankai so like its owner. A bankai that forced an emotionless, unfeeling mask onto its wielder's very core, dulling their emotions in order to fulfill their duty to defeat their enemy.

It was cold.
it was efficient.
it was brilliant.
It was beautiful.
It was Rukia.

Yet, of all the masks that Rukia wore, it was that cold emotionless mask that Ichigo hated the most; because it was once the only mask that had ever been able to fool him.

But he had systematically, torn down and destroyed all of her masks and he had relished in it. He loved fighting to tear down the many masks she wore, if only to catch a glimpse of the real Rukia behind it. His smirk widened as he strode forward to do just that.

"Don't move Ichigo."

The cold command had the opposite effect on him, spurning him forward in defiance, smug smirk ever present upon his face.

"Never."

Ichigo rarely openly defied Rukia, other than reasons such as life and death, like when he'd defied her by following her into Soul Society and saved her. Oh he'd verbally oppose her for the sheer fun of the battle, but he'd never actually defy her. She was his voice of wisdom and reason. Actually defying her was like trying to defy the flow of time; it was futile and simply impractical.

"Stop Ichigo" She demanded in a cold, monotonous tone that eerily brought her brother to his mind. He gave a small shake of his head, bangs falling in and out of his eyes, never slowing his gait as he stalked toward her.

Her freezing reiatsu mixed with his own hot mess of spiritual pressure, resulting in torrid little wind storms kicking up around them as he got closer. He was only a few steps away when she lifted her sword up at him, pointing the tip directly at his chest.

"You'll die Ichigo. Stop. Back away"

"I won't." He continued forward in spite of her protests. He couldn't tell if she was serious or not. His eyes never left her face.

"STOP." She shouted, her cold voice echoing off the frozen walls around them, ringing out loudly like he was used to it doing. He almost smiled were it not for the hairline fracture that appeared on her cheek right under her eye stopped him just as the tip of her sword pressed gently into his chest.

"Rukia…" he muttered softly, his smirk fading away like the wind.

"Don't move Ichigo" she repeated, her voice as dead and still as ice. He raised his hands up in surrender, still clutching his dual zangetsus before he let the blades clatter to the floor.

They held each other's gaze for several long moments, her sword still barely touching his chest and keeping him at bay.

"What is its name?" Ichigo asked quietly.

"Hakka no Togame"

Ichigo nodded while simultaneously lowering his hands slowly from the air, one hand moving slowly to push her blade down and away from his chest.

"Don't move Ichigo I'll…" she didn't finish her sentence yet neither did she move to stop him further. Her blade and arm fell to her side.

"You'll what, Rukia?"

"I'll break." She whispered and her voice sounded like the wind. "I'll shatter."

"You will break me."

The gusts formed from the mixing of their hot and cold reiatsu's picked up as he took a long stride forward to stand directly in front of her, looking down on her face. The ice in her snow white hair cracked in the wind around them and Ichigo fought back a wince.

"I won't." he vowed softly, bringing his hand up to press his hand to her face, his thumb gently caressing the crack that had formed there on her cheek.

"Ever."

She raised her head to meet his gaze again and he found that he could finally, blessedly, see the emotions swimming in her eyes as her bankai slowly melted into mists that shrouded them. Relief flooded through him at the sight of her emotions once more reaching her face, overwhelming her with a myriad of different feelings as she looked back up at him.

And it was just as overwhelming for him to try and sort out his own feelings in that moment as all sensation began to come back to her all sense vanished from him and he bent and crushed his lips to hers just as her heart started, and then promptly skipped a beat.

She grabbed the front of his kimono with her free hand, and he reached up and wrapped his large hand around hers, holding it in place against his rapidly beating heart.

He pulled away slightly, his breath misting over her face and mingling with hers. He looked into her eyes and saw his own pride in her reflected in her eyes that lit up with a smile so bright it froze him in place. He smirked down at her.

"You're cold."

"You're a baka."

This was written at work (terrible employee; hopefully decent writer). It was written in secret (just like the good ol days when I started writing fanfiction) so hopefully it turned out okay.

This idea came to me as I was reading the latest chapter when Byakuya warns Rukia to "melt slowly" when I thought, there is no way she will be able to melt slowly if Ichigo were around, and what would happen when they were able to see one another in their new forms.

Expect another chapter from Rukia's POV coming soon.

Review if you like it; Review if you don't.
Also review and let me know what you think about Rukia's bankai.

Deceptress