Author's Note: Written for Theme #46, Too Human, at the ichi_ruki livejournal community. Enjoy!
"We shall not shed tears... For tears mean the defeat of the body to the heart. And to us shinigami, that simply proves that the existence of a heart is a burden."
"Do you know where the heart lies, Rukia?"
The girl placed a hand somewhere on her chest – awkwardly, uncertainly. She regarded the inquiry as a trick question – didn't everybody know where the heart was? Somewhere in the right side of the chest?
"Er... Kaien-dono," Rukia stammered, eager to please her superior but unsure if the answer was as obvious as she thinks it is.
The man standing before her merely chuckled. A deep, hearty chuckle. "You're looking in the wrong place, Rukia," he said. With one hand he formed a tight, powerful fist and positioned it in front of him. "The heart is a remarkable thing. It is much more than the simple physical organ that resides in the chests of humans. In reality, it does not live in our bodies, but in between one and those whom one cares about the most."
"I'm not sure I follow," Rukia said. She had always been very practical and grounded. This was too abstract, too philosophical for her. "I thought only humans have hearts. We shinigami are spirits; we don't need hearts."
"Yet we have them. There lies the crux of the matter. What is there to say that we shinigami do not need hearts as well? Who said that the only duty of the heart is to pump blood? Do you not have feelings, Rukia?"
She mumbled something in the affirmative.
"Then of course shinigami need, and have, hearts," Kaien said, smiling kindly down at her in her awkwardness. "The heart never dies," he explained. "Even if you die, your heart will live on in those closest to you: nakama, family, loved ones... That, I think, is true immortality. Quite befitting, isn't it, that humans and shinigami are alike in this one aspect?"
Rukia still didn't quite understand, but only smiled as Kaien grinned back.
His heart was passed on to her much too early, much too soon.
All of Seireitei's Division Thirteen grieved over their beloved vice captain, and many of their faces were set hard with a solemn air only Death could bring. Captain Ukitake felt obliged to keep the vice captain seat empty, in Kaien's honor. It would be a long, long time before any of them felt that they should name a successor.
The whispers followed Rukia everywhere, little fragments she caught here and there that ripped apart and decorated her fragile skin with a million tiny cuts that left her vulnerable and exposed. She was aware of how people looked at her, gossiping behind her back, eyes filled with pity darting furtively from the ground, to her face and back. But she did not want their pity. She wanted their wrath and their anger, to be hated as much as she hated herself.
How many times, she wondered, will she have to wash her hands before she stops seeing his crimson blood staining her white skin like a deep dye? Will she ever stop expecting to see her completely white and pure zanpakutou adulterated by the red hand of guilt?
During the night, she would sit on the cold stone bench in one of the gardens of the Kuchiki mansion, staring at the moon unblinkingly as if in a daze. Her ever indifferent bother Byakuya found her like this one night. He instantly knew without asking what, or who, Rukia was thinking about.
"You are too human," he said before walking away, with the cold apathy of pointing out a flaw in a painting, a painting that could never feel.
Even now, Rukia contemplates what her brother means.
It is a long while after until she feels safe enough to wonder: What happens when you take your heart into your hand and squeeze with all your might?
Does the blood ooze out, carving crimson rivulets on your hand, leaving the heart shrunk and pruned?
Do tears begin to fall, formed from those blood droplets dripping from your hand?
What happens when your body is so overcome and defeated by grief and pain? Can your heart go into shock? Can it freeze completely, unable to produce tears?
Was this why her tears refused to drop and offer her this one solace?
Or was it because shinigami simply could not cry?
It was Execution Day.
Never before had her resolve been so set as it was now. She was going to die. And she embraced it.
Or, she would have, if that boy Ichigo hadn't arrived.
She hadn't dared hope. But he came for her.
He swooped in, literally, smiling down at her with such a cocky grin on his face that wouldn't, couldn't, register the fact that he had placed himself in such imminent danger to save her; such a carefree smile that conveyed an air of innocently discussing the weather that she knew and loved well. Her chest leapt; time stood still.
His determination was blinding like the sun; so blinding that Ichigo knew nothing but his goal of rescuing her.
What in the world are you doing here?
He looked momentarily confused at her question. What do you mean? I'm saving you. There was never a second motive.
We fear that which we cannot see.
More than once, Rukia had lain awake in bed late at night, pondering. If what Kaien said was true, then her heart lived somewhere between her and her loved ones, in the air. Foolishly, she reached out into the air around her, groping for something she could not see, for something she could not feel. She could not say for certain that something was even there.
So where was her heart?
What if she never found it?
What if she had nobody to pass it on to?
...Where was it, and how come she could not see it no matter how hard she tried?
Rukia ran as she had never run before in her life, sprinting and leaping over piles of rubble and broken cement chunks where the hollow had demolished the road, barely sparing a glance to where her feet were landing even though the risk of twisting an ankle was high. Frankly, she did not care one bit; she would drag herself across the ground if it came to that, because all that mattered right now was that she reach Ichigo.
She collapsed to her knees by his side, her panic increasing when she noticed that Ichigo was lying on the ground remarkably still. She stifled a gasp when she finally saw the large hole in his chest where the hollow had punched a hole in him, a blow that was aimed for her head, not him, but stupid, stupid Ichigo had insisted on jumping in at the last moment, pushing her away, and taking the hit for her instead.
The blow had narrowly missed his heart. To her complete and utter horror, Rukia saw the tender, blood-red corner of Ichigo's heart poking out, having slipped slightly out of place, exposed due to the gigantic hole in his broad chest.
(Somewhere in the background, Fourth Division healers tried to pull her away from him, but she growled and shrugged them away from her; they didn't understand that she needed to be there by his side.)
She leaned in closer over Ichigo, her nose inches away from his chest, eyes trained on that tell-tale corner of his heart, willing it to move ever so feebly. She stared into the masked face that she had never seen before and asked Ichigo silently, What have you done to yourself now? What was that power that you used just now? Was that you? The mask was so much like all the other hollow masks she had seen before but she knew that somewhere deep inside, this was still Ichigo. It was still Ichigo's eyes looking out from beneath the mask. And so she had nothing to fear.
(Seireitei was in an uproar as the captains found themselves in a situation of panic and confusion. Rukia offered no details of her own. Renji rushed to her side, demanding whether or not she was okay, but she simply gestured at the unconscious Ichigo and he fell silent.)
Her face was suddenly wet and stung painfully. She gingerly reached up to touch her face and hissed as tears (grimy, dirty, bloody tears whose significance is lost upon her) slip down her cheeks, across the bloody scratches on her face.
She had seen his heart tonight; she could have hold it in her hands, but still did not understand what it was, what it could do, how Ichigo's could make him do the stupidest, craziest things, for the sake of another.
But the tears and painfully exposed raw flesh on her cheeks – the pain was real, and she relished how it kept her grounded in reality.
Sometimes Rukia stayed over at the Kurosaki household in the human world. Though she would never admit it aloud, she liked it there; it truly felt like a home.
The first time she climbed into his bed, Ichigo was sound asleep, his chest rising and falling steadily and slowly. Rukia was careful not to disturb his sleeping form as she slipped underneath his warm covers, lying on her side since Ichigo was lying on his back and taking up most of the narrow bed. She marveled silently at how perfectly her body conformed to his.
Ever so cautiously, Rukia placed her head on his chest, her ear pressed to his cotton t-shirt so that she could listen to his heartbeat.
Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump.
His heartbeat was like a language she could not understand and so she listened eagerly; to her, it was strangely beautiful. So strong, so true, never wavering. Unlike her own, which lay so transparent and faintly in her chest.
Her heart worked without it ever being necessary for her survival; she could live without it. But the gigai kept it beating as a pretense, to complete her disguise as a human. It was a simple truth that no matter how well-made a gigai was, the heart was always obviously artificial if one looked too closely; it was the one organ that was the hardest to emulate. Rukia felt a flash of jealousy. She wished she could feel her own heartbeat, like a human.
She slowed down her breathing so that her heartbeat, however faint, however artificial, matched his, beat for beat, forever synchronized.
When she woke up the next morning, Rukia found that Ichigo had enveloped her in an one-armed hug, smiling sleepily down at her.
Before all the other questions could be answered, she supposes there remains the ultimate one that must be answered first:
What is a heart, and how can it love?
There was something strange in Ichigo's eyes that Rukia had never seen before in them. It took her a while to name the emotion, for she had never once before matched that particular emotion with Ichigo.
It was fear. Poisonous, uncontrollable fear.
"Rukia," Ichigo whispered, his voice hoarse from lack of use.
She had been standing in the doorway of his bedroom, mouth wide open ready to reprimand him for skipping school that day, but she abruptly snapped her jaws close at the sound of his desperation. Ichigo was sitting on his bed, elbows propped up on his knees. He had been cradling his head in his hands, only looking up when he heard the sound of Rukia entering the room.
Rukia immediately knew that there was something terribly, terribly wrong. She closed the door softly behind her, crossing the room quickly to sit by his side, so close that the cool crispness of her school uniform's sleeve rubbed against the soft cotton of his shirt. She was silent, unsure of what to do, of what to say.
Ichigo was never afraid of anyone; anyone, that is, except himself.
"I went to Urahara. About my... problem," he said.
She closed her eyes briefly; she expected it was this. "What did he say?" she asked quietly.
He did not need to use words; he simply looked at her and she knew. They had both known it a long time already. Ichigo could not control his hollow, not even as a vizard. Soon, he would transform completely and permanently into a hollow, even if he was still in human form. It did not matter if he was still technically alive; it did not matter if he was not even in his shinigami form. His hollow that had lived inside of him, relatively dormant, was too strong now and it was consuming him.
Rukia recovered quickly (she had a lot of practice doing so in her lifetime) and huffed in an impatient, no-nonsense manner. "I'm going to go have a talk with that Urahara first thing in the morning tomorrow –"
"No."
She recoiled at his tone. "What?"
"I said, no. Urahara has done enough. He can't do anymore. He made that much clear," Ichigo said tersely.
"No! I'm sure he can do much more; he's probably working on a solution right now, and if he isn't, I'll –" Rukia argued, a fanatic edge to her voice.
"Stop it, Rukia," Ichigo ordered, lifting his head so that he could see her face and look into her eyes. She felt a sharp, painful twist deep in her gut as she saw the countless number of unnamable emotions flitting in those warm, brown depths. She wanted to beg him to tell her what he was thinking, to beg him not to let it all bottle up inside until it burned him up from the inside out, to beg him not to use that helpless tone in his voice. Silence filled the space between them. Never before had Ichigo seemed so close yet so far away. After several minutes, Ichigo slowly drew in a breath and exhaled just as slowly.
"Would you do me a favor?" he asked abruptly.
Rukia closed her eyes briefly, bracing herself for what was to come next. Nevertheless, she nodded softly but eagerly.
"You're the one who gave me the ability to protect, and... I am lucky I met you that night when you gave me your powers that unlocked my own. You gave me a life I never could have imagined – wait, let me finish," he said when Rukia showed indignant signs of interrupting him; he could tell that she wanted to belittle the credit he had given her. "Let me say what I want to say." He paused, eyes cast down on his limp hands in his lap. When he resumed talking, an alarmed Rukia noticed that his usually deep, confident and sometimes arrogant voice had become noticeably shaky. "When I'm gone, I want you to protect the people I will no longer be able to protect, the people we have protected together for so long, so short a time. Karin, Yuzu... all of Karakura Town. It'll be like what we've always done, except – except I won't be there with you. You'll do fine without me anyway. Promise me this, promise me that you will protect everybody... from me."
Rukia inhaled sharply. Her mind was reeling. All rationale was pushed out of her thoughts once she processed what he was saying, what he was asking of her. Denial quickly set in. "Don't be an idiot, Ichi—"
"There's another thing," Ichigo cut her off, raising his head and locking gazes with Rukia. "When I become a full-fledged hollow – when there is no way I will ever be myself again – I want to be purified only by your zanpakutou, by your hands."
She did not reply right away. She was at lost for words.
When, when, when. She noticed Ichigo was saying when where she felt the word should be if. Was he so absolutely sure that he would no longer be himself? Should she just agree to give him that one consolation? Never before had Rukia ever considered fighting hollows without Ichigo by her side, ever since that fateful night she turned him into a shinigami. It made her wonder how she had ever fought hollows before she met Ichigo.
"You want me... to kill you," she said slowly.
Ichigo shook his head, bright orange locks rustling. "You're not killing me, you're saving me."
Any other person would have simply promised yes and left it at that. Any other person would have given him what he wanted.
But Rukia had never been any other person.
"Don't give me that crap, you moron!" she yelled harshly. "Why are we talking about this? It's all irrelevant! Even if I promise such a ridiculous thing, it's useless since it won't ever happen anyway! The opportunity will never rise for me to fulfill that promise! You want me to give you such empty words?"
Ichigo's scowl deepened. "Denying it won't prevent it from happening!" His voice dropped. "Are you saying you won't do this one last thing for me?"
Rukia flinched at his accusation. She knew what he was implying. She was well aware of all the things he had ever done for her, and for her sake only. For her sake, he died to regain his shinigami powers to go to Soul Society to save her from being executed. For her sake, he trained and trained and trained to become stronger, preparing to defeat anybody blocking his way to her. For her sake, he left Soul Society without her by his side because she wished to stay, although they both knew he wanted her to come with him. For her sake, he took the blows from hollows that were meant for her, knowing that she would yell angrily at him later for trying to protect her. He never asked for thanks, he never asked for compliments, he never asked for anything in exchange; in fact, he despised profuse words of gratitude, preferring instead the healthy slap to the head, the heated exchange of words that were their way of saying thanks. This was the one time he was asking for anything from her, and she was refusing him.
The look he was giving her tore her apart inside, and there was a deep painful, sinking feeling in her chest she could no longer ignore. It would be all too familiar for her. Ichigo knew about Kaien; Ichigo must have realized this. A loved one consumed completely by a hollow, turning into something less than human, with no way of reverting back to normal. A loved one, asking, begging, pleading for her to end his misery and his torture, wanting to be killed by her zanpakutou. A shinigami's duty was to purify and kill hollows, and if there was one before her, she was obligated to do so. Kaien was a hollow, but a loved one nonetheless... Her sense of duty clashed with her own feelings and Rukia recalled again the words of her brother:
You are too human.
So was this her destiny? Was she condemned forever to love with all her heart only to have that one man die a death not worthy as a shinigami, and by her hands?
Ichigo listened to her prolonged silence. He said nothing, but could not hide the disappointment in his eyes. What little will Rukia had left was crumbling fast, like glass skyscrapers shattering into billions of tiny shards of glass, tumbling to the ground.
There had been no choice with Kaien. She had loved Kaien like the warm elder brother she never had. He was her role model, her shining star to follow.
But Ichigo was different. Ichigo was more than just a nakama, more than just a loved one. She didn't know how she knew this, but she knew that her love (for, yes, it was love; she had long since come to this conclusion) for Ichigo simply wasn't the same as her love for Kaien all those years ago.
Ichigo was different. He was her entire world.
In the short amount of time that she knew him, she had grown closer to him than any other person, even people she had known for her entire, considerable lifetime. Ever since that night she thrust her zanpakutou into his chest and gave him her power temporarily, enabling him to save his family from a hollow, Rukia had built her world around him meticulously, piece by piece, one block at a time. She had found a new sun to revolve around, a new anchor, and for once she felt warm through and through. So powerful was his strength, it had taken a very short period of time for Rukia to be back on her feet, her heart beating steadily again, having found another heart to beat in time with. She hoped, as she never dared to hope, that maybe she could live again.
Ichigo was her sun; and Rukia couldn't imagine living in a world full of uncertainty and darkness again.
Kaien-dono had been wrong about one thing.
Hearts do not live in between two people, where they hung so seemingly vulnerable in the empty, weightless air. No; one's heart thrives in the soul of one's significant other.
Rukia thinks of Ichigo and simply knows.
Rukia stared at the boy – because ultimately, he was still just a boy – before her, his warm brown eyes filled with fear shooting darts of poison into her own violet ones. She could see that her denial was only aggravating his distress. She knew that no matter the effects of her decision moments after (or even years after) the fateful moment on herself, she would eventually grant him that one last wish if it came to that.
She owed so much to him. Now, there might not even be enough time for her to pay that insurmountable debt to him. It was foolish perhaps, even naïve, but Rukia had always assumed that with Ichigo, time was never a factor, that they would always be by each other's side – truly forever, past death itself, as far as they were concerned.
Suddenly her small hands clenched into tight fists.
"I refuse to believe it," Rukia said, in a low, low voice saturated with pure, raw emotion. Ichigo looked up at her in concern, startled. "I refuse to believe that you will simply disintegrate into a full-fledged hollow. You–" she stood squarely in front of him now, "—will always be Ichigo, and only Ichigo, to me." Rukia's resolve was unwavering but she could now feel a painful lump in her throat that was making it difficult to speak.
"Don't," Ichigo said sharply. "Once I'm a permanent hollow, I don't want you to think of the hollow you see as 'Ichigo.'" By then, I would have already died. The hollow isn't me anymore."
By then, I would have already died. Her heart gave a tight squeeze, and as the tightness in her chest increased with each passing moment, Rukia felt the pain – the long-lasting, searing kind of pain – ooze out of her heart. The pain manifested itself into the tears that were lining the bottom of her eyes.
Ichigo became alarmed. "Rukia, why are you—?"
She never cried. Maybe because shinigami could not cry. But maybe it was because the only person that could make her heart cry was also the only person that could make it stronger.
She understands now. A heart does not cry because of pain; a heart cries because of love.
Suddenly, her hand shot out and Ichigo instantly froze when he felt her tiny hand splayed out on his chest, fingers spread wide. "This," she whispered emphatically. "Can you feel this? The thing beating in your chest? Only a human has one." As she spoke, her voice grew stronger. "I refuse to believe you will become a heartless hollow – as long as your heart still beats within me and mine in yours."
"Rukia—" he said ever so softly, his breath tickling her cheek.
"You have the largest, truest heart I have ever known. A heart that enabled a human to become a full shinigami despite the overwhelming odds. Are you telling me after all you have done, after all the risks you have taken, you are going to give in once somebody tells you that you can't subdue your own hollow? Are you giving up, Kurosaki Ichigo? Answer me! The Ichigo I know, the Ichigo that lives in my heart, doesn't give up so easily! So are you giving up now?"
Ichigo took her hand in his and slowly drew her entire upper body into his long arms so that his chin rested upon her head and her ear was pressed to his chest. "No... No I'm not, as long as you are here beside me." The fear in his eyes was replaced by tenderness.
Rukia did not answer, because between them words were never needed to confirm that their connection will always be there – the connection between them that made her as human as him, their desire to protect that made him as shinigami as her, their hearts beating as one.
fin
Hope you enjoyed it; I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for taking the time to read this and please review!