Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, sadly. It belongs to Tite Kubo.
A/N: Just a little break from my current story, a short one-shot - and because I promised a certain somebody that I would write something angsty as well ^^
IchiRuki pairing – because I dislike Ichigo/Inoue parings, and because IchiRuki is seriously under-loved. :]
xxx
Thawing A Heart
Kurosaki Ichigo.
Substitute Shinigami.
Rukia's violet eyes followed the movements of the young man in as he dragged himself back down the road, way after midnight.
Another late night of hollow hunting, Ichigo? When will you ever give up? Get over the fact that she's dead? She's dead. Inoue is dead,
And I couldn't save her.
She could already hear his answer in her head, and it was like hearing his voice all over again, full of pain, sadness – but mostly anger. Anger at himself. Anger at everyone who had failed. Unjust anger, anger unfit to be borne into a heart as kind as his own – but anger that was there nonetheless. Nobody can control their feelings.
But he suppressed them, pressed a dampener of fierce determination over it. She expected denial, but instead he accepted it with a kind of grace that amazed her. Intrigued her.
Damn.
As if I wasn't intrigued enough already.
This is not the time to bring up love.
Already the giddy feeling that always overtook her when she thought of Ichigo was overtaking her. Ichigo's eyes – strong, amber, burning… like they could see right through her. His arms, wielding Zangetsu, the huge zanpaktou, with such ease. His strong, broad, shoulders. His hair. His …
The list went on, and her imagination started to wander…
No!
She clamped down on the indecent thoughts and stuffed them away in a corner of her brain. She would not be caught dead thinking about Ichigo like that.
My Ichigo… Her subconscious coaxed.
Shut up. She told it irritably.
The door to Ichigo's room, where she currently resided – sitting on the windowsill – banged open, and the dripping wet boy – no, man – entered, shoulders and head bowed.
Her eyes followed the bright hair that clashed horribly with his current demeanour as he moved around the room. Didn't fireflies get attracted to his head at night? She mused idly, tracing a finger over the condensation that had gathered at the misty edges of the window.
Absentmindedly she drew a rabbit, then wiped it out with a swift stroke of her arm. If only she could wipe his painful memories all away as well…
"Rukia," Ichigo's voice, hoarse from the cold – though something told her that was not all it was – came from behind her. She felt his cold fingers touch her arm lightly. They were so icy they chilled her to the bone.
"Rukia, get off the windowsill. You'll catch a cold, stupid," He chided her, this time wrapping his long fingers around her arm and tugging at it.
She stayed put. She was wearing a t-shirt, borrowed from Yuzu, but though the feel of his icy skin on hers sent shivers down her body from the cold, she also sought comfort in his distant, too-cold touch.
Comfort that he didn't seem ready enough to offer her, she realized all of a sudden, dropping her eyes to the small flakes of snow that had stuck to the outside of the window. After Inoue had been killed in Hueco Mundo, he had gone into a deep state of depression. One thing had plagued Rukia since that day, despite her grief and feeling of loss… she couldn't help but wonder:
Was his sadness because he loved Orihime-chan, or was it because he had failed?
Would he have become this way if Rukia herself had been the one to die in the world of Aizen?
Or would he have gladly traded her in place of his orange-haired beauty?
"Rukia…" His tone now held impatience. Usually he treated her with a glacial kind of politeness and respect, but she sensed something stirring in him, in his annoyance, that reminded her of the old, hot-tempered Ichigo she knew.
It had been a long day for him. Of course he would be grumpy. She planted her feet against the opposite side of the windowsill where she sat, and didn't move.
"Get… off…" He grunted, having put his arms around her shoulders and under her legs, which were propped up against the edge of the windowsill, and tried to lift her off. But he was exhausted and she gripped the edge of the sill to keep him from lifting her, and after a while he slumped back down again, thoroughly miffed.
She knew that he never gave up since that incident in Hueco Mundo that had resulted in Inoue's death, even in small things. He wouldn't give up in this. He wouldn't give up in anything.
Not anymore.
He hadn't even been very prone to giving up before, but now…
Now he would fight till his very last breath, if it came to that.
Even if the fights were just little battles, such as getting Rukia off the damn windowsill.
Now he was trying to pick her up again, and though he kept prying her fingers off the windowsill, she utterly refused. Not until she got to see his old self again. Not till the Ichigo she remembered and revered emerged. She didn't want to be carried by this cocoon, this impression of Ichigo. Nothing more, nothing less. Just want.
All she wanted was to be selfish for once.
She turned to face him, hoping to catch a glimmer, a glimpse of his old self in those hard amber orbs. And she almost did.
Their eyes met, violet and amber, warm and cold, soft and hard. Their faces were too close, she noted dully, too entranced in his eyes. She could feel his breath on her face…
His breath… on…?
Oh god.
She practically melted in his arms, like putty, releasing the sill immediately, and Ichigo let out the tiniest of smirks, the smallest of sparks lighting up those cold depths of his eyes.
Even though she just knew he was going to dump her on the bed unceremoniously a second later, she couldn't help but enjoy the moment as he lifted her into his arms. She smiled into his chest, softly.
And then the sheets enfolded her as he dumped her on the bed.
Rukia groaned, but couldn't help thinking that the invisible burden that seemed to have settled itself on Ichigo's shoulders lately seemed to look lighter, ever so slightly.
She studied his shoulders as he walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
Yup. Just a bit lighter.
xxx
Kurosaki-kun…
Her light voice called him, ringing in his ears like a bell would.
Kurosaki-kun…
He knew this dream. He'd dreamed this dream many times before. In moments, Ulquiorra would come along, brush his cold lips against Orihime's cheeks, mutter 'I'm sorry,' and then kill her.
Ruthlessly. Heartlessly.
Her hair would clash gruesomely with the colour of her blood, bright, vibrant, and more alive than she could ever be again. Orihime had died, looking at the man she loved.
She had died looking at her cold killer, her arrancar. Her Ulquiorra.
She had loved him more than anything else. And he had loved her. And that was why, while her blood was still flowing onto his hands, he turned his emerald eyes to Ichigo and asked him to take his life.
Begged him.
Had those been real tears, glistening over the black marks on Ulquiorra's skin? Or was it another trick? Another illusion?
Whatever it was, Ichigo had gladly taken the life of the espada, silencing him immediately. Rukia had entombed Inoue in ice. A pillar that would last forever, giving her the impression of sleep.
The espada had no tomb.
Ichigo turned his attention from his memories to the dream. He prepared himself to watch Inoue die, just as she had died before, with him unable to save her.
But as his eyes focused back on the image before him, it was not Inoue who was about to die.
It was Rukia.
And it was himself who was killing her.
Or more accurately, it was the much darker, much more violent… much more unknown half of himself.
A bestial grin spreading itself across his visage, Hichigo pulled Zangetsu out of the raven-haired young woman's torso and disappeared with a laugh.
--
Ichigo awoke with a foreboding feeling. There was some dark kind of pressure pressing down on his senses, dulling them, numbing them. He could barely swing himself out of bed to stumble to Rukia's closet. It was stupid. Of course she was there.
He opened the closet.
The rumpled blankets, the discarded school uniform Rukia was always too lazy to hang up properly. A glass with the remnants of milk still at the bottom, along with several books and an alarm clock.
He took these all in, as well as the phone lying on her empty pillow.
The phone that was beeping.
The phone that was indicating the arrival of a hollow.
A hollow that Rukia had obviously gone to take on herself.
Immediately Ichigo hurtled across the room, throwing aside several objects before he reached the small, yellowish pill he was searching for and popping it into his mouth. Instantly, Kon took over his body and his shinigami self seemingly morphed out of the flesh.
"Stay here. Don't move," Ichigo commanded, then he leapt out the window, Zangetsu already drawn.
"Wait, Ichigo, what's going o-!" Kon scrambled across the room to find the window slam shut in his face. "Argh," He muttered, and reluctantly sat down on the floor, leaning against the bed and waiting for Ichigo and his Rukia-nii-chan to return.
--
Rukia ignored the sweat running down the side of her face and leapt into the air again, attacking the hollow with Sode no Shirayuki, slashing a huge gash diagonally across it's chest.
This hollow was surprisingly small, she thought, gasping for breath. It almost resembled an arrancar, and the reiatsu she felt emanating from it was enormous. How had it gone unnoticed for so long?
She found out soon enough.
The hollow, which had taken on the form of a lithe woman, half panther, half human, and just a bit of something else, grimaced at the pain and sprung into the air, spinning and … vanishing.
Just like that.
There was no reiatsu, no presence, no nothing.
And then Rukia felt a burning pain in her back and she turned immediately, Sode no Shirayuki's ribbon swirling behind her. Ignoring the blood dripping down her robes, she raise the zanpaktou.
"Some no mai, tsukishiro,"
A white, glowing circle formed around her opponent and almost immediately a pillar of ice shot up and engulfed the hollow – but only its arm.
The hollow had made a surprisingly fast dodge to the side, but now one limb was frozen dead into the ice. Rukia watched on for a few seconds with cold eyes.
The pillar shattered, taking the arm with it.
The once-trapped hollow fell to its knees, filling the air with a high keening noise. Up till now it had done nothing but hiss and screech, but anger filled the high, trilling, soprano-like voice as the woman (for it was undoubtedly that) spoke.
"You will pay. I have power at my hands that you cannot imagine."
Rukia frowned and slashed her zanpaktou again, driving the creature backwards.
"I can know your moves…"
She slashed again…
"I can know your mind…"
Again.
"I can know your heart."
And with that inky blackness overcame her eyes and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees, but the pressure was so great on her shoulders that she couldn't even lift her head to see the familiar figure before her.
Sode no Shirayuki clattered to the ground beside her from her limp hands. Her blank eyes stared straight ahead. Utter hopelessness suddenly gripped her heart, but, fighting the effects of the hollow's technique, she forced her head upwards.
What she saw there made her breath rattle in a sharp gasp.
"Kaien-dono…"
A long tongue, coated with slime, emerged from his mouth, tentacles erupted from his back, claws from his fingers.
She couldn't let this get to her. She couldn't.
But love and hopelessness weaken the mind and the body, and the opponent that the young woman was facing knew how to use both to her advantage. No individual feeling like Rukia did at the moment – hopeless, hopelessly in love, worried, afraid… guilty. Nobody feeling that way could have withstood such torment.
The shinigami almost welcomed the tentacles wrapping around her arms, gripping them so that they hurt. The tongue, foraging through the air, towards her face. Kaien-dono's blank eyes searching for her without sight. Searching, searching…
"Rukia!"
There was a crashing noise behind her that stunned her out of her reverie and she jerked backwards from the tentacles with a sharp cry. Ichigo stormed towards the hollow, wasting no time whatsoever.
"GETSUGA TENSHOU!" He bellowed, sending waves of red and black curling towards the enemy, ploughing into the ground and blowing apart half the street. The hollow dodged and jumped and Ichigo growled in sudden frustration. All of a sudden his temper, his impatience flooded back, along with the blood of battle pounding through his veins.
All because of a certain raven-haired girl who knelt, slumped, on the ground behind him. Depending on him to be protected.
And Ichigo never gave up.
"Bankai," He commanded in a double-layered voice, pushing the limits and simultaneously drawing a hand across his face, till a skeletal mask eerily resembling a hollow's replaced it. Yellow pupils stared out of black eyes, towards the suddenly apprehensive hollow. Then he leapt towards it, trails of black and red spiralling from the end of his zanpaktou.
Rukia watched as they traded glancing blows, hoped that Ichigo could best the hollow, but the ground was fuzzy and was suddenly rushing up to meet her…
Until a strong arm caught her.
"Rukia! Hang in there," Her orange haired saviour told her sternly. But the few seconds of distraction cost him and the hollow immediately hit him with the same technique that it had used on Rukia.
All of a sudden he was seeing the dream again.
Ichigo.
But it was different this time, this time it was not Inoue's voice that called him. Inoue was dead. Now it was somebody else's life that depended fully on him, somebody's life he wanted, needed to save.
And I'll be damned if I fail this time too.
Rukia lifted her head up wearily to see Ichigo standing in front of her, shoulders bowed. He was gasping sharply, fighting against it. The hollow mask covering his face faded away and he suddenly blanched, writhing and twisting as his skin turned a bleached white and his eyes refused to return to their original amber colour.
Soon it wasn't Ichigo, but Hichigo who stood before the hollow. And, like all things that only half-exist, and dominate only half a brain, Hichigo's heart was that much harder to grasp. His mind was that much harder to control.
One slash was all it took with Zangetsu to eliminate the threat.
White pulled back, melting back into a colour of skin. Those amber eyes Rukia saw so often reappeared, filled with a triumphant look that she hadn't seen in too long a time. Too long.
She shuffled over to him on her knees and grabbed him just as he toppled to the ground, exhausted. After all, he hadn't gotten a decent wink of sleep for a long time… and, truth to be told, neither had she.
She pushed back his orange hair and managed to half drag, half carry him to the pavement, where she set him down and leant against a conveniently situated wall, settling his head in her lap. A snowflake landed on his chest.
Then another.
She pulled Sode no Shirayuki close and waited for him to awake so that they could return home. Return to somewhere warm. She stared sorrowfully at his closed eyes and pale face. His heart had been frozen way too long, she realized.
But frozen hearts could always be thawed, she thought with a small smile.
It felt like her first in a long, long time.
xxx
A/N: Okay, I'm sorry for the sucky ending and stuff, but I was eager to finish this so that I could get my brain geared up and ready for some more writing of my more serious story.
Hope you liked, though, so REVIEW PLEASE!
Thanks guys :]
~Sesshy