Title: Little By Little
Characters/Pairings: Kaien/Rukia. Hints of Renji/Rukia
Rating: T
Summary: Rukia looked at Mayuri, as he stared blankly back at her, as she did the unthinkable in asking him to bring Kaien back. And she knew Soul Society would never forgive her.
Rukia's part in Kaien's death has completely leveled her, leaving behind a void that can't be filled. Consumed by guilt, she opts for the only way out and tries to end her life. But when that fails and she's left to her suffering, she turns to Mayuri and does the unthinkable by asking him to bring Kaien back, no matter the consequences. Unable to refuse the challenge, Mayuri makes an imperfect clone using the same techniques that created Nemu. But can Rukia truly cope with the responsibility of raising Kaien into a world that won't accept him, and caring for him...even if he'd not the man she loved?
A/N: I'm sorry if updates aren't frequent. This story was directly inspired by Between Me and Thee by KuroKuchiki, Vindictev [The proud owner of the Kairuki fanclub on Bleach Asylum], kalthurin, and the lovely Miss Geoffrey Chaucer, the authoress of The Rising Phoenix.
This fic here is my baby. I love it very much. I would love thoughts or comments on this just so I know I'm doing right by this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or The Pixies' songs.
Chapter 1-Where Is My Mind
The massive high of adrenaline had trickled out of her. Her mind was unhooked from the remainder of her. There wasn't an ounce of control left.
The acrid sting of bile coated her throat, irritating her gag reflex. She opened her mouth and started to wretch, her body heaving and her shoulders hunching with the effort. She felt so deflated...so empty of any livelihood that had been possible just because of his existence.
All of the tendons and muscles in her stung as if they'd been pulled too tightly, like after a day's worth of rigorous labor. She felt thin, like too little butter scraped across too much bread. Non-existent; virtually, empty.
Her life source throbbed again, but what vestiges of energy she'd boasted had been expended through screaming and kicking when Ukitake-taicho tried to pry her from Kaien's cold, damp form after he'd stopped breathing.
In her heart it was raining. It pressed down on her, sinking into her bones, where she could feel it as intensely as if it was a physical wound.
The downpour had alleviated to a drizzle. Not that it would have mattered—her shihakusho was already heavy with the water it had absorbed. Her hair was damp and strands were plastered to her face, giving her an almost wild quality to her appearance.
The rain brought with it a fleeting breeze that passed through the clearing emptily.
It stirred the sicky sweet scent of honeysuckle. His scent.
"NO!" A tortured scream brimming with animosity and anguish sliced through the quiet, humid clearing. The giant perennial trees of the forest surrounding them shook in a sudden current of air.
"Kuchiki!" Ukitake shouted, trying to reach her. He folding his arms around her like a father-figure would and lifted her away from Kaien. Rukia jolted in his grasp and thrashed her legs out.
A low grief-stricken cry scratched its way up past parted lips. She shook her head, hair whipping back and forth and clinging to her cheeks and the camber of her neck.
Rukia still couldn't tear her eyes away from her dead lieutenant's body; she couldn't stop telling herself over and over in a never ending mantra that this wasn't real.
He looked so wrong in death, so vulnerable crumpled there on the forest floor. No more was the liveliness and down-to-earth personality of her beloved mentor. Now he just lay there on the grass, blood staining through the ebony black of his once neat uniform.
"Kuchiki, you're going into shock," Ukitake told her, his voice far off, as if she was hearing him through plexi glass.
Rukia's head jerked back violently then and she kicked out hard with her legs, writhing, fighting it, denying it despite how impractical it was.
It was about that moment while Ukitake tried to wrestle her to a calmer mindset that Kiyone and Sentaro flashed onto the scene. They ceased their calling when they saw their lieutenant. In stunned shock, they both looked over the aftermath.
The still quiet of the forest was fractured by the rustle of the foliage around them, and then Kiyone wailed, collapsing onto her knees and breaking out into hysterical sobs. Sentaro appeared so devastated he was incapable of anything else but just standing there.
Rukia's grasp on everything was hazy, but in spite of how blurred her vision was, she yanked her arm away from her captain. On all fours, she crawled over to Kaien.
Gently, with the care of a mother, she pulled him over onto his back and laid his head in her lap.
Bearing no heed to the others in the vicinity, Rukia stroked his silky jet black locks and began to keen.
She rocked back and forth at regular intervals, mourning. Tears poured down her face, their salinity mingling with the fresh rain water that trickled in rivulets down her blank visage.
At one point, Kiyone got up and staggered over, hiccuping. "R-R-Ruki-" she began, reaching out with one hand. Rukia twisted around at that moment and snarled, "STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"
Startled, the sandy-haired female stumbled and fell back on her bottom. Rukia rose to her feet inelegantly, swayed, and then, in erratic, perfunctory movements prepared to move him.
"Rukia, what are you doing?" Ukitake asked softly.
"I'm..." She paused. "I'm taking him home..to his family. It wouldn't be right otherwise."
"No," he said curtly. "I'll do it."
"And tell them what exactly? I'm the one who murdered him. I should be the one to confront them and tell them how he died."
He hadn't refused her permission of this request. Somehow, later on, she would wish he had.
The grass was lush and the air sticky and damp. The thick fabric of her uniform clung to her body, moistening with the excess of sweat that trickled down the fine camber of her neck, creating miniature trails that coasted her collarbone and vanished behind the overlap of her clothing.
Her robes were suddenly uncomfortable and she felt tainted—sullied by his blood. It was all she could do not to lose her balance and crumple right there on the spot. As it was, she didn't know where her mind was. Her consciousness certainly wasn't in the present of things. It was back there- in the clearing where he had died.
She staggered on her feet and swayed, her need for rest warring against her sense of duty. Pulling his limp form behind her wasn't so much a burden on her mind as it was on her corporeal self.
Her brain was sending signals to her limbs, telling them to take a time-out and cease her movement. But her soul wouldn't let her. She didn't hasten her pace.
For some sentimental reason, she wanted to prolong this, as well as her suffering. She wanted to utilize what precious seconds she had with him before she turned him over to his family.
Her hands were shaking violently from the high of adrenaline, so much so that when she reached back to continue lugging him along, the pads of her fingers brushed up against the glossy strands of his hair. Rukia bit down on her lip, stifling her helpless cry of anguish. Memories flashed before her eyes unbidden, intensifying these feelings of self-reproach tenfold.
She was saved by the rustling of foliage as someone came striding towards her amongst the tallgrass.
She heard a shocked cry as she shrugged off the memories and gazed past hollow eyes at an adolescent boy no bigger than herself. He began to make meaningless chocked noises of fear.
She saw his eyes move to the body behind her.
He screamed. "B-BIG BROTHER!" He looked back at her. "W-WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
The words left her mouth without permission of her mind. "I killed him." Her voice was detached...unfeeling.
"You..." The boy pointed his finger at her. "YOU GET OUT OF HERE!" He broke down in tears. "GET OUT OF HERE NOW!" he screamed.
Rukia was reluctant, but she stepped away from Kaien and placed him down on the grass as his younger sibling approached him, body trembling. There were far off yells as others approached the area, drawn there by the boy's screams. Rukia gave one last mournful look at her lieutenant...and ran.
She couldn't bear to confront them knowing what she'd done...It just wouldn't be right.
Everything after that was a blank: the sprinting, the way she panted as she charged through the forest, snapping twigs, tripping and stumbling, frenetically wiping her cheeks to rid herself of the blood.
The blood never went away. Her zanpaku-to's blade would forever be stained with it.
She staggered to the stream behind the 13th barracks and collapsed onto her knees. Hyperventilating, she began to scrub her sword in the water. A few times, she cut herself, but she no more felt the pain than she did anything else as numb as she was.
Rukia began to panic when some of the blood didn't come off all the way, and she noticed that most of it had soaked into her clothing, was on her skin—everywhere. She sobbed, stripping her uniform off and using it to cleanse her zanpaku-to.
Once having done that, she started to vigorously rub her skin so hard that it became inflamed from the friction. She dunked herself repeatedly in the stream until she was quaking violently from the frigid waters. She irrationly summoned Haien to burn her clothing, incinerating it and all traces that she had killed him.
Rukia looked into the flames as they dissipated, and sank down onto the grass and curled up in the fetal position, in nothing but her juban. Her eyelids, though heavy, didn't close. She just stared off into space, unable to sleep, unable to think, just hovering in an endless black nothing.
Ukitake recovered her some time after. It was truly heartrending to him as her captain to see her so...empty.
Kiyone and Sentaro gasped when they saw their comrade, and he told them to stay back.
Approaching her, he shed his haori and draped it over her tiny form, covering her while modestly averting his eyes. This was already demoralizing enough for her. The least he could do was show her some respect, no matter what condition she was in.
Though his lungs were burning from over-exertion and the effects of his earlier attack, he picked her up in his arms and cradled her against his body before turning around and moving onward. Kiyone and Sentaro flanked him, taciturn for once in their lives
The heavens began to weep once more...
