Tatsuki Arisawa always prided herself on being the strong one among her friends. She was the person who fixed everything with a sarcastic quip or punch in the shoulder, often coupled with a broad grin. Nothing bothered her because she wouldn't let it, because her friends needed someone strong who feared nothing and no one, least of all anyone's opinions. Because they needed a true companion, someone who'd never let them down or leave them, an invincible dragon that no wannabe knight could slay.
That was her job. They needed someone so she became that someone. Nothing could pierce the shining armor of Tatsuki Arisawa. All the people she protected and took the hits for and doled out the pain for would never get hurt, because they could stand behind her and cheer her on and nothing could touch her.
Even as a little girl, constantly scraped-up from simply being Tatsuki with all the roughness and fighting that entailed, the dark-haired martial artist was her friends' guardian. First it was Ichigo, chasing away the kids who picked on him for his hair and cheering him up later. That wasn't quite as straightforward, though, because a lot of their interactions involved Tatsuki yelling at the orange-haired boy and beating him soundly in their karate spars. Then it was Orihime, crying in the bathroom in a pile of gloriously bright hair as a posse of girls giggled around her and passed around scissors. Anyone who dared mess with Orihime, whether out of jealousy for her hair, or later lust for her youthful beauty, was sure to receive brilliantly colored, extraordinarily painful bruises for it. Many a classmate was made to apologize in a mess of snot, tears, and blood.
As her social circle expanded, and Tatsuki matured, that protective duty was transferred to all her friends. Michiru and Mahana, Ryo and even Chizuru, Keigo and Mizuiro, Orihime and Ichigo, and much to her surprise Ishida and Chad eventually, all were taken beneath the so-called Dragon of Karakura's wing. Tatsuki might be only the second-strongest girl in Japan, but she was second to none in determination and ferocious loyalty. She might mock Mizuiro's Casanova tendencies one day and whale on Chizuru another, but they all knew she would die for them if need be.
None of them knew how true that was.
They understood intense loyalty. They understood fire-forged friendship. What they didn't understand was that Tatsuki went beyond that. She was ready to give up her life in a heartbeat for them, because the world needed them more than her and all she had was friendship now.
Tatsuki Arisawa wasn't the strong one anymore. She couldn't fix problems like she used to because now she was the problem. There were too many chinks in Tatsuki's armor, too many blades that could pierce it and too many hammers that beat on it until it wasn't tempered but merely dented. There was too much to fear now. The dragon-slayers came in greater numbers every day, determined to destroy all the power she'd worked so hard for and all the people she loved.
And no one needed her anymore. They'd grown up and moved on. Ichigo was distant, keeping his feelings and thoughts hidden where she'd once had to tell him to stop sharing so much personal information. Orihime was sweet as ever, but her first thought was increasingly for Ichigo and not her oldest friend. Ishida and Tatsuki'd never been close, but they were polite, and she liked to think that she and Chad had been good friends once. They both understood the power inherent in bare fists and strong bonds.
And they didn't understand that despite what she might show to them on the outside, the pain on the inside was still agonizingly real. Taunts and insults, mocking laughter and rumors, it all hurt so much more than she let them see. She was only human, after all, and yet they still expected her to be the confident one, impervious to any cruel word and strong even in a world where humans were less than nothing on the scale of power. Tatsuki was only a teenager worrying about her part-time job and getting into a good college, but they wanted, almost needed to see the invincible, unstoppable warrior who laughed in the faces of fear and death and mockery and shoved through it all. But a little bit of it clung to her armor and wormed its way inside to become a festering doubt that wouldn't leave. And they needed it so badly that she couldn't deny it, had to keep being strong and stoic.
Tatsuki's whole life had been spent getting stronger, training until she dropped and sweating rivers every day. Form after form was perfected and drilled into her bones, calluses thick on her palms and little scars on her knuckles from before the dark-haired girl had learned the proper way to break someone's face. Now? She was the weak one. Ichigo kept secrets from her because he thought it would endanger her, and these days he was right. If Tatsuki knew who had taken Orihime, she would've torn screaming through the world to hunt them down and beat them into a pulp, driving their bloodied flesh and chips of bone into the ground because nothing would ever be enough. They could never pay enough for what they'd done. And the monsters that had done it would've cut her down as easily as tearing a piece of tissue paper.
It would've been worth it, just so she didn't have to stay there another day and watch them drift further away into their own world of unimaginable power and trust. Maybe then they'd care about their poor little classmate, so delicate and fragile and human.
Tatsuki couldn't fight any longer. She couldn't fight any of the battles that mattered, couldn't defeat the enemies that threatened her friends. She couldn't fight the fate that took her friends away and left her in the dust like a broken toy. Tatsuki couldn't fight the endless pain of being powerless and unworthy. Everyone decided everything for her, and she could do nothing about it because she would always be weaker than them. The years of sweat and blood and tears and work meant nothing in the face of those with natural power that soared beyond hers and centuries of war.
So she stopped fighting, stopped reaching into her reserves for strength that wasn't there to take on obstacles that would never be surmountable.
Tatsuki Arisawa just tried to go on as she always had. Or pretend that was the case. Making threats of pain when her friends didn't comply and sharing the heartbreaking knowledge that she wasn't able to follow through anymore. Blustering and using shows of force like the paper tiger she'd become even though she wanted nothing more than to stop because she didn't know any other way, didn't know any other role but being the load and she refused to acknowledge that she was already a burden, just like everyone else did. Nagging Ishida to fix the fingerless gloves she'd given him already because they looked pathetically tattered despite the fact that they both knew he was too busy saving the world and hardly had much time to be in school at all.
It's a slow, silent death, but she keeps smiling a horrible rictus because even if they don't need her to fix their problems, even if she can't fix their problems, even if they don't need her protection anymore, they still need her to keep playing at being the strong guardian and true friend.
If only any of them understood that the fixer and protector needed someone to fix and protect her.