I know, I know, what am I doing starting another story? Honestly, this ones been sitting in my docs for months and months and I just needed something to do with it.

Mountains swirl with mist. It lifts beneath the peaks, clouds spun with wind and, unsettling through thick spruce trees. Tiny green caps are barely visible that day, turmoil clings to the humid air. It is cold, close to frigid. Somewhere far off a river runs, sliding beneath glaciers that melted in the sun. It goes unseen but not unheard.

He cannot see him on another mountain top and yet she knows he is there, as always.. A white spot with a splash of black. He is being watched.

He ignores it. Ignores the itch at the back of her neck and swings her arms, slicing into the air. His kicks cut through the sky, clouded and dark. Far off, wind begins to a song of distant memories.

We live, we die, we live again.

Who would have thought the War Boys had it so right? Although this was hardly valhalla, despite the numerous people who had witnessed her death. She was in no paradise, and she was in no tartarus. She was in a high school. Again.

She hadn't expected to wake up, in all honesty. When the light left her eyes she had thought for certain that the was all. That the cracked cement would be the last thing she ever saw. A memory that would remain for no one.

She hadn't thought to be born again. She hadn't thought to hear the shrieking wail of an infant. She hadn't thought to breath air, or see the sun, or feel the burn that came with her running and jumping.

But here she was, fifteen years later, alive and well.

Better than well. She was amazing. She was happy, she was loved, and she wanted none of it to change.

Outside the window, a black shadow ran across the telephone wire.

Change was inevitable, she knew, and as soon as this shinigami left and was replaced with Rukia, whoever the hell that was, things would change forever in her life. And in the life of her brother.

"Ichigo," she said abruptly, "Let's pick up snacks on the way home."

He looked over from his brooding, staring out the very same window from one seat behind her, before he shrugged.

"Sure," he agreed.

"Kurosaki's!" Misato's voice raised and both of them looked up, identical expressions of idle curiosity crossing their faces. "If you keep talking, you'll miss me dismissing you! Now go home!"

Surprised, the girl looked up at the clock. It was, indeed, time for them to go home.

"Sweet," she grinned and shoved her books into her bag. Getting out of school was the best part of her day.

"Hey! Uryu!" she waved at him before he got out the door. He liked to sit up front, contrary to the Kurosaki twins, who both preferred window seats. He looked at them, waved, and then left.

"Tch. Rude."

Ichigo nudged her shoulder. "C'mon, Rika. Yuzu and Karin are probably already home."

"Carry me!" she demanded, abruptly pitching herself at him. Ichigo merely stepped to the side and let her smash bodily into the floor. Another shout of 'rude!' echoed around the room, but Ichigo was already half out of it, leaving his twin to go scrambling in his footsteps. Funny, considering she was older by a half hour.

The eldest of the Kurosaki fell into step next to her only brother, bag bouncing against the back of her legs. She turned her face up to the sun and smiled when the warmth laid itself across her cheeks.

"I love the sunshine, I love the butterflies. I love the windblow, I love the river flow. I love the city lights, when the moon is high," she shot finger guns to Ichigo, who didn't do anything more that glance at her, before she broke into the chorus of boom-bee-ah-dah's herself, skipping along her gloomy brother.

She would have sung for the whole trip home, if they hadn't been interrupted by a group of boys in baggy neon clothes and hats that weren't even backwards. One of them had sunglasses too small for his face, and his teeth had been colored black. Old school.

They had met before. A few different times. He was Chojiro Setsuki, who had pulled her hair and pushed her down when they were children. He hadn't grown much since then. He was still a bully, and a punk always looking for a fight. Something he could always find if he cornered her and her brother.

Rika looked at Ichigo, who was setting his bag neatly to the side. She did the same, cracking her neck from one side the other before she lunged, leading with a bone-breaking kick.

In a family predisposed to twins, mess with one and you got at least two. And if you were really stupid you got all four. It was a lesson that Chojiro learned the hard way when two fists smashed into his face. One broke his nose, one ripped his cheek open from the ring on it. He fell to the ground with blood pouring from his face.

Rika looked down at him, thoroughly unimpressed.

"We're tied again," her brother observed idly. He went over to pick up their book bags from where they'd been dropped by the road. Luckily no papers had spilled out. Rika didn't want to run around chasing her homework down.

"I lost count," Rika admitted. She took her bag and adjusted her ring, rubbing some blood off of it. They were going to be late getting home. She hoped that Yuzu didn't worry about them.

"Think that kid will be there again?" she wondered, starting the trek back home in the lead. Ichigo trailed after her. They walked through the city, rectangular houses on both sides. The streets were mostly empty this time of day, now that the rest of the high schoolers had had a chance to get home.

"Probably. His folks still haven't come to see him again. Geez, I'm gonna have to cross him over, aren't I?"

Rika snickered at her brothers expense. A look left, then right, and she walked without the light, passing a phantom with a chained chest. She could see them just as clearly as her brother, but he was the one who always ended up helping the lost dead. She just stood by and helped him pick fights. That was their life and life was good.

Ever since they turned fifteen though she had begun to anticipate the future more than before. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the shit hit the fan. By her calculations it was within the next month that Rukia was going to show up, and by that extension it was less than a month before the weight of the world started to descend upon her brother's shoulders.

Rika had no idea where this knowledge came from. It popped into her head, fragments of information that she didn't know what the hell to do with. It wasn't seeing the future so much as knowing it, the way she didn't remember learning to walk but could do so all the same. The knowledge just came. Sometimes. Sometimes it was as simple as 'you know that the square root of 255 is 15'. Sometimes it was as complicated as knowing that a little shinigami named Rukia Kuchiki was going to show up when they were fifteen and change their lives forever.

She wondered what the future held.

She turned them down the alley and hopped neatly over the pile of debris that was being swept together by a cute little girl with black hair.

"Hi there, Ururu," Rika greeted, waving at her before she stepped inside the shop. It was cooler in the darkness. She let her eyes adjust before she turned a bright smile on the shop owner.

"Kisuke!" she waved brightly at him. Behind her she heard Ichigo utter a simple, 'hey'.

"Well, if it isn't my two favorite customers! Here for more cake?" he flicked his fan out in front of his face, not quite hiding his smile. Rika smiled brilliantly in response.

"A whole case if you've got it!"

"What are we doing with a whole case?" Ichigo stared at her incredulously.

Rika crossed her arms and tossed him a mischievous smile. "So I have something to eat with your girlfriend when you bring one home!"

"I don't have a girlfriend!" he barked.

"Boyfriend then," she shrugged carelessly. "Or maybe I'll use them to bribe Uryu into showing me how to shoot a bow. That sounds fun."

Ichigo rolled his eyes at her. "If you were an archer, you'd go insane. You're too impulsive. You'd miss everything."

"Ha! I'm a girl, so I'll never have target panic. And I don't have to be patient, I just have to look where I want it to go and let go," she said with absolute confidence.

Ichigo stared at her blankly. "There's no way that's how it works."

"Silence! I know exactly what I'm talking about," Rika pouted at him. The expression turned into a delighted smile when Tessai appeared with a box full of the little cakes she loved so much. "Score!"

She traded her card with the massive man, smiling brilliantly. "You're the best, Tessai, thank you!"

"Oh, no gratitude for the owner of this fine establishment? My, my, you would me," Kisuke pressed his fan to his chest dramatically, tilting his hat down to hide his eyes as he 'mourned' the insult she had paid him.

"Stop being so weird," Ichigo demanded.

"Sorry, sorry," Rika waved her hand in his direction. "I'll make it up to you."

"No you won't," Ichigo said bluntly. Rika had to laugh. She knew he was right. She always said she would make it up to him or be a bit less strange.

"Come back soon!" Kisuke called after them even as the pair strolled out into the sunlight again.

She never came through with those promises, no matter her intentions when she made them. She couldn't help being weird, seeing ghosts and all that. It wasn't something she had asked for, but it was what it was and she loved this life too much to pretend to be anything other than herself.

She was Rika, she was Masaki's daughter and Ichigo's sister. She was 'Always Strong' to his 'Number One Guardian'.

There was, however, one exception to this.

Rika loved almost all aspects of herself. Except-

"Hey, you have the key?" Ichigo nudged her shoulder.

"Oh yeah," she fished it out of her bag and pulled the door open.

She sidestepped a flying hug from her father when he burst through the door of the house to greet his oldest children, so Ichigo could hit him into a wall. The plaster crumbled around his shoulders. Rika slipped her shoes off and walked inside, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her hair.

"Hey, you're back," Karin, looked over at them from her spot on the couch. "Yuzu made dinner."

"Really? Sweet," Rika leaned over the back of the couch to hug Karin. And steal the remote. She

flipped channels and stepped back when the smaller girl lunged after her.

"Give that back!" she demanded, swiping for the controls.

Rika laughed at her and danced out of the way, spinning around Yuzu to kiss Ishin's cheek, since she had ignored him on the way in. She hadn't had a father before. She couldn't be too mean to the one that adored her in this life.

"No way! It's mine now!"

Ichigo appeared on her other side, plucked it from her fingers, and handed it back to Karin. Rika swatted at his shoulder.

"Daaaad, Ichigo's being mean," she whined dramatically, leaning onto his shoulders to hide the mischievous smile that stretched over her face.

"What?!" Ichigo squawked, "She was the one that took it from Karin in the first place!"

"How could you throw your own sister under the bus like that!" Ishin launched himself at Ichigo with a kick. Rika snickered before she slipped away to change out of her school clothes. The shirt didn't quite fit her right. She had no idea how Orihime could wear it with her chest.

The eldest of Kurosaki kids shut her room door and slipped out of her uniform. She sat on the bed, fiddling with her ring. It had found her. She didn't know how, but it had. The pink gem shone towards her, just like the day her Grand had given it to her some thirty years in the past. It was a lifetime ago. A life of unfulfilled dreams and missed chances, a life of imprisonment and desperation.

And now, it was a life of wonder.

A life of terror, to be fair, with Hollow's running around all over the place, but Rika had little fear of them. She had little fear of anything left, it had all been swallowed up by her joy at being alive.

Even now, some fifteen years later, she still stopped what she was doing sometimes, closed her eyes and breathed the air, and focused on nothing but her own glorious heartbeat.

It thumped, softly, quietly, but so strong in the background. Steady as the beating drum, it pushed her blood, red, living blood, through her limbs. She could run, she could jump, Hell, she could fling herself off of buildings if she really wanted to.

Rika stretched her arms above her head, popping her shoulders, before she moved on to stretch out her legs. All of her limbs had gotten longer than they had before. Her whole family was tall, she was only a couple of inches shorter than her brother.

Rika switched out her school uniform for a nice blue dress and went back down to see her family.

They would be growing soon, she figured, with Rukia and Kon arriving. Rika made a mental note to figure out who the hell Rukia and Kon were, and why they would be joining her family.

"Hey, how was work?" she asked, sliding gracefully into the chair next to Isshin.

"Wonderful! No one died today!" he declared with his usual exuberance. "Kushina and the Tohsaka boys came in with chickenpox. Make sure you-"

"Wash your hands, brush your teeth, and sleep like a normal person," all four of them chorused, some with more humor than others.

"We know old man," ichigo grouched, "Pass the rice."

Yuzu handed it over with a scolding, "Ichigo, be nice."

"So, this weekend is opening night," Rika toyed with her beef on the plate. They were doing 'the Pharaoh's Daughter'. She was river spirit. She would have rather been Aspicia, but Momoi got the role instead. Next time.

"We'll be in the front row!" Isshin declared, "Cheering you on for your beautiful performance. Masaki, our daughter is growing so fast!" he launched himself at the massive portrait on the wall. Rika laughed goodnaturedly while Ichigo sighed deeply.

"You'd think I just got boobs or something," she shook her head and finished her dinner.

"No, he freaked out worse when that happened," Ichigo propped his chin in his hand, watching their father with boredom.

"Yeah… Man, he's gonna lose his mind when Yuzu and Karin get their first bra's," Rika smiled at the thought. Isshin was goofy, but he loved them more than anything else in the world. And Rika loved him just as much. She had never had a real father before him, and she was glad for it. It meant that she had nothing to compare him to and no lingering sadness to corrupt her feelings towards him.

It was different when Masaki was alive. She remembered her first mother well, and she had never quite been able to let go of that. Masaki loved her with all her heart, but she had never been able to forget who had brought her into existence the first time around.

Her former mother, Anna Mae, was about the only clear memory she had of the time that came before. Everything else was just confusing bits and pieces, her knowing things she didn't remember learning and feeling things that didn't quite make sense.

She tried not to question it too much. If it was important, she would remember, right?

"I'm going over to Uryu's house, since I'm done with homework," she said, turning away from Isshin. "I got a new skirt I want him to put pockets into. You wanna come?"

Ichigo snorted. "And let him use me as a pin cushion? Hell no."

"Oh come on," Rika elbowed him in the side harmlessly. "It'll be fun!"

"I'm pretty sure his dad hates us," Ichigo shoved her face, a small smile starting to form on his face.

"Eh, since when do any of us care?" she reasoned. Uryu and his dad didn't exactly get along as it was. In fact she was pretty sure the only reason he'd invited them over years ago was because he knew Ryuken would disapprove of them being friends. He was a cute little rebel.

"Tell him I'll see him tomorrow," Ichigo waved his hand around and stood up,before going off to brood. Or whatever he did in his room in private for hours at a time. Rika was comfortable calling it brooding.

"You guys want me to pick anything up on my way back?" Rika asked, turning her attention back to the younger sisters.

"Those little chocolate cakes?" Yuzu suggested, looking excited at the prospect. Karin seconded the motion quickly.

"You got it," she saluted with two fingers and moved towards the door, grabbing her boots. "I'll be back, later, love you!" she shouted into the house, then spun and ran out the house before Isshin could give her any advice on boys, and how not to trust them. As if she had never watched the news.

She didn't tell the girls she already had the cakes for them. Why spoil the surprise?

Rika took off at a jog, making her way through town. It was a nice day. The sun warmed her face and she laughed, pushing herself to run faster. She skidded around corners, took stairs three at a time and sailed down to the ground when she cut through the park.

Her skirts fluttered around her knees, her long legs stretched out to carry her as far as she could travel.

Or, in this case, to Ishida mansion. With her running start it was all too easy to hop over the high reaching wrought iron gate. Uryu's house was a massive construction of white and blue, fit for a doctor and his son. Of course, Rika knew that it was actually a family home, one that had been passed down for a long, long time. Ryuken kept the grounds meticulously green with his own hands, the gardens a gift to his late wife that he had never let anyone tend besides himself.

That was how Rika had first met him, a dozen years ago. On his knees, tending the garden in jeans. He wasn't out today, probably getting ready for the hospitals weekly influx of weekend patients, if she had to take a pretty educated guess.

Rika walked past the manicured bushes that lined the path to the main house, out of their colorful bloom. Shadows danced between the branches of trees, dappling the stone before her feet.

When the door opened, Uryu wasn't surprised to see the eldest of all the Kurosaki twins standing in front of him, her dark hair wind swept but her not so much as winded. She had been over three times this week already, this was nothing new. His father wasn't exactly happy, but that was all the more reason for her, and her brother. to come over.

Had it been Ichigo on the other side of the door, he would have simple waved his hand in a lazy greeting and grunted. That was much easier to deal with than what actually happened that day.

"Uryu!" Rika, contrarily, yanked him into a hard embrace. Uryu patted her back awkwardly.

"Hello. Did you bring it?" he asked, pulling out of the girls arms. Rika held up a plastic bag for him to take, and Uryu practically snatched it out of his hands. He moved aside, letting the girl into the house.

"Yuzu said she hopes you like it," Rika said brightly. The door shut soundly behind them. "And, I bought that new skirt. Check it out," she held it up for him to see, and Uryu adjusted his glasses slightly, straightening them.

The flower print showed off blue daffodils when she passed it over to her dear friend. Uryu accepted it and lead her inside, barely glancing at his friend he was so absorbed with the material.

Rika let him lead the way to his bedroom. She was used to empty, quite house. She didn't like Uryu being in it, but she couldn't exactly do anything to change her friends living situation. Wish as she might to bring her friend some joy, it was limited what she could do then.

Maybe, when they were older, she could spirit him and her brother away and they could move away into a lighthouse by the sea. She could sail with her brother and dress pretty with her friend and live in a total delusional fantasy.

Rika fell upon his bed, stretching out casually. Uryu huffed at her.

"I didn't say you could sit there," he groused.

"I'm laying, not sitting," she retorted easily.

Uryu made a face at her. He sat at his desk chair, flipped the top up to let his sewing machine out and got to work putting her pockets in. Rika let out a breath, closed her eyes and listened to the methodical clicking of the machine.

It was a hypnotic. The soft bed, the hum of the sewing, the vague scent of vitaver and grapefruit that permeated all of Uryu's belongings.

Rika's breathing softened, and within a few moments, when the sewing machine turned off, Uryu was staring at her with a familiar exasperation. She loved afternoon naps.

She slept right on through evening. Right on, through the biggest change to hit the living world in decades.