Ichiruki – Bleach – Monthly Challenge – Week 2 – Day Two
Not The First But Definitely The Last
Our world works in ways we don't understand and can't always explain. We know nothing of what paths of our futures may take and why or the decisions we make to get there. However Yhwach had known. He could – and did – see them all. He saw every available future, every happiness, every path they could all take; he saw it all…..And he took it from them. Every future where they could all be happy, he stole it from them. She didn't remember everything or every word spoken between him and Ichigo but the moment those brown eyes had met her own violet-blue, she had known then the path decided for them.
Goodbye was a word they both knew all too well. Saying it was easy but meaning it was harder. They could say it, pretend it meant nothing to them to just leave the other behind like their souls weren't being ripped from their bodies and torn asunder but damn, did Rukia want to stop lying. When it was time for that last goodbye, the last time she knew she would ever see him – she didn't know how she knew it, only that the distant, empty look in those warm brown irises scared her as much as they hurt her – she held her head high and smiled.
Smiled while her soul was ripped to pieces, screaming at her this wasn't right, this wasn't meant to happen, wasn't supposed to happen. Smiled when he stopped, in the middle of that white light, and looked back. The look in those eyes would haunt her until the day she died. His lips slowly folded into a sad smile and he opened his mouth. She was the only one who saw him mouth those words, the first and the last time she ever heard him call her his Moon. Then he had disappeared and, still, she was left smiling while tears fell from her eyes and the bond between them – neither of them could deny it, hell, no one who met them could deny it existed – rattled from the pain inside of both of them.
Kaien's death had broken her in ways she had never known a living, breathing body could be broken. But Ichigo? Just like he did her entire life, their last goodbye – the death of them you might as well say, because it sure as hell felt like she was dead – shattered her. All the sharp, edgy pieces coated her heart, digging deep into the soft, tender flesh until with each breath, all she felt was pain. Losing Kaien was nothing, a paper-cut, compared to the harsh reality of losing Ichigo – and the fucking strawberry was still alive.
She couldn't imagine what she would do if he died even though her soul whispered that the day Ichigo died, Kuchiki Rukia would already be long gone from the world.
And so, ten years passed.
She married Renji in a loveless arrangement with no energy to care or fight, gave birth to Ichika and tried hard to love her daughter and not hate that tuft of red hair, and lived up to the Kuchiki name – hell, she even became Captain! None of those things – none of them – erased the pain lodged in her heart from their last goodbye, the words mouthed to her with that haunted, empty look in his eyes. What scared her the most, all those years ago, was the determination lacing the edges in a dark cadence. They told her something, whispered through their bond, his intentions. She hadn't understood the message until she was standing outside Kurosaki Clinic, Ichigo leaning on the glass door.
Their eyes met and all he could say was, "Yo."
She felt the same, a surge of sympathy at the guarded look in those eyes that had always been windows to his soul, and pain arced through her as she smiled – why was she always smiling this fake, unhappy, painful lift of her lips? – and called back, "Hey."
It passed in a blur, all too much for her to truly take in. Of course she had known he had married Orihime and heard of Kazui's birth. In fact, she could clearly remember some of her only friends that she had left speaking about it before she walked in and they went quiet, like it was a secret that would break her. She was Kuchiki, Rukia and she was not broken so easily – at least, that's what she told herself when she fell against Byakuya who held her until her voice ached from her cries. The moment she saw Orihime walk in it all hit her again.
This was their reality, one of the future's Yhwach had seen. And she had to wonder: why this future? Why was this future the one that came to be? Her and Ichigo argued the entire night, teasing, both of them ignoring the pain lancing their chests. If they refused to acknowledge it then it wouldn't exist and their lives could continue in this boring, fake replication of happy. It wasn't until Ichika strolled in, hair bright red and grin like Renji's, holding onto the hand of a boy with those beautiful orange strands of hair and warm brown eyes that she understood.
It dawned her like coming up for air from beneath dark, murky waters. Their last goodbye was the first new beginning for Ichika and Kazui. It was the first of the times they would hold hands, the first time Ichika would beg to stay the night, the first time they shared their first kiss, it would be in Kazui's room on a moonless night atop the Kurosaki home beneath the stars at 12 years old. It would be the first when Kazui, more quincy than shinigami, would have his first real fight with his father – "Why didn't you fucking tell me what I was!?" – and travel to Soul Society, where he would find Ichika and it was the first time they would call each other more than best friends.
Rukia would remember, as the years passed and the pain inside of her only hardened, the time Ichika had come in, grabbed her in a tight hold, and cried into her shoulder. Kazui was a lot more like his father than they had realized. His quincy powers were strong, and they kept Ichika at bay if the way her hand was burned was anything to go by. And Rukia's heart ached from the thought that their children would suffer just as they did, that Yhwach had known that this, too, would come to pass.
It was the first and the last time Ichika ever saw Kazui. She didn't return to Karakura Town and Kazui never came back for her. Maybe it was the hard, distant look in Ichika's orbs that pushed Rukia to act or maybe it was the way she couldn't bear to see their future – her and Ichigo – be repeated. Doing the very thing she admonished Ichigo for so long ago, Rukia was reckless. She acted on an icy, painful impulse that she could change their Fate – was she talking about Ichika and Kazui or….. – and that she didn't want to let Yhwach win.
She couldn't let him take their happiness from them. Of course she had heard about Kazui vanquishing the last remanent of Yhwach's power – the boy was just like his dad – but Rukia had always known in her heart: as long as there was a chance of happiness, Yhwach's darkness would be there. She had known this, accepted it, and forced herself to believe that Ichigo had lied to her that day – if she accepted he had meant those words, she would never have been able to live – because it was the last time.
But when did their firsts become their last? When had they let themselves fall prey to the what if's of a future they had never dared to believe they couldn't change? When had they given up on not Yhwach's future but their own?
"I can rewrite futures where I die…."
"Remember…..Nothing…..Escapes my gaze."
And the most horrible of all Yhwach's statements: "Whenever you indulge in your own joy, you will remember my ominous words, having the fear of death for all eternity."
How could Ichigo, he who was always fighting for justice and for the happiness of others, give up on fighting for a future he wanted? She fell through the Senkaimon and ended up falling through a slightly cloudy night hanging over Karakura Town. A crescent moon peeked from behind the clouds, a white sliver against the darkness of the night sky. Her arms spread wide, Rukia fell with her chest facing the ground below, her now long black hair flying behind her in the wind. It was a rush, her heart pounding, and she remembered Ichika, broken hearted. Her daughter had become more like her: cold and sharp.
She couldn't love Ichika like her daughter deserved or like a mother should but the least she could do was fix their future. All she had to do was find Kazui. If she found Kazui she could fix this….But she never got that chance. Her fall through the night was halted when a shadowy hole opened behind her. Turning, eyes wide, she came face to face with a shadowy, wispy hand that grabbed her throat and jerked her up to a one single, pulsing eye. There was a deep madness swirling in those depths but for a moment, as she hung in Yhwach's grip, those words echoed inside of her mind.
No matter what future, he would be there. Being happy meant being weak in Yhwach's eyes, it meant that when you were happy you grew comfortable. You began to lose your fear of Death and Yhwach? That single bulging eyeball held no semblance of fear. Rukia's blood turned to ice when instead of fear or loss all she could see was the glint of triumph in that orb. His dark smirk flashed through her mind followed by a horrible, gut wrenching mad laughter that had her heart pounding so hard, her chest began to ache.
The last time she saw Yhwach his shadow stabbed her through her chest. Blood gurgled into her throat, warm and sticky, and her heart stuttered when his shadow jerked back into the dark void in which it had come, splaying her blood through the air. The eyeball sneered at her as she hacked up the wet sticky red that was her life, a sharp numb pain in her chest. Her lungs struggled to hold in air as blood seeped from her heart, staining her haori and Captain's robe through the back. She stared at Yhwach – or what was left of him – as his dark chuckle rumbled through her mind.
"I told you I would come. Here I am. Fear is not defeated by courage. You cannot defeat fear." His voice in her mind was almost sad, as if the very idea of humans forgetting what it meant to be afraid was a terrible tragedy.
Her throat was tight and blood continued to well up like a gurgling fountain as she rasped out, "This isn't….The last time….."
Yhwach was quiet and his next words caused cold, hard dread and that dark fear he loved to invade her. Her chest ached suddenly with the dawning truth of what his words meant. For the first time, Rukia felt a suffocating, coldly numbing fear that paralyzed her, sinking into her soul. "Exactly. I have seen them all. Your future, my future, Ichigo's future. Even little Kazui and Ichika. I have seen the futures of everyone and everything. And I will destroy them."
His shadow, still gripping her blood clogged throat, pulled her closer as his voice returned to that confident triumph and with a certainty that blinded her, Rukia could see the future too. In the end, there wasn't one. There was no future he couldn't reach them. All this time what had they been fighting for? What future had they thought existed? Her eyes welled with stubborn, truthful tears as she realized the painful message Yhwach had delivered: there was no future where they could be happy.
At least, that's what he wanted her to believe. And Rukia believed him, this man who had defied time and space and Fate to destroy every future of happiness they could have ever had. There was one thing, though, that strengthened her dying body enough to darken her violet pools into a blue-black that shimmered with that very courage Yhwach had denied existed. She stared hard and firm, unwavering with an unbreakable bond in her soul, into that eyeball that threatened to ruin everything she loved and Rukia, with a voice stronger than she had thought herself capable of, poured her dying heart into the words that flowed from her bloody lips. "I….Am not afraid. Come for me Y-Yhwach –"
She coughed, the sound sharp and wet, as blood splattered from her mouth in a spray that made that made the shadowy man grin. Her next words wiped the smirk clean off his face. "And I will fight you, a-again….And again…..In every future, every time. I'll fight….For my future, m-my happiness….I. Will. Fight."
A roar shattered her mind as he launched her through the air and for a moment, her body froze in time, suspended above Karakura Town as her violet orbs slipped half closed and her body tingled numbly. At first, she thought it was her words that had made him angry but her tired, weary gaze fell on the sword stabbed through Yhwach's fading form, his shadows melting into grains of black sand that would melt into the flow of time, heading to the next future to destroy them. And Rukia would be waiting for him.
She managed a bloody smile as her body, time's suspension snapping, hurtled through the night to the hard cement below. She never hit the ground, cradled against a firm chest. A pounding heart beat in her ears and she didn't know if it was her own or the form that carried her, shunpoing through the Town so quickly that the sky became a blue-black blur speckled with white dots and the shining smile of the moon.
All she could see in her hazy vision was orange hair and her smile widened, eyes unable to focus as she mumbled out, blood trickling from the corner of her dry lips to her jaw. Her voice was raspy and hoarse but she paid it no mind nor the crowding blackness in the back of her skull. "S-sorry, I-Ichigo."
Her breathing slowed and her arm, placed on a shoulder she didn't remember being this small or thin, fell limply to dangle through the air as he raced them towards something she couldn't see. His heart picked up it's incessant pounding as she felt her eyes slip closed a bit more. "Shoulda….F-fought for us. I-I…..Love you, fool."
The heartbeat stuttered and the voice that shouted wasn't Ichigo's but it was one she would recognize even in her dreams. As it turned out, she wouldn't get to see Ichigo one last time. Instead, she bled out in the arms of the son of the man she loved. "J-Just hang on, Rukia-oba-san!"
The sheer terror and fear in his voice shook her to the core of her soul. This kid…..He was so much like his Dad that it made her heart ache for him. Remembering futures and cold-eyed girls and lost chances, she forced her eyes top open as far as they would go to meet the teary, panicked brown eyes in a boy's face that met her own.
The blood in her throat grew thick and she had to spit the words out, feeling her chest grow cold at the wet blood that stained her haori and her mutilated flesh. But she had to make things right, fix the future. She was going to win and she would not let Yhwach control her Fate any more. "I-Ichika."
Her violet orbs willed him to understand. Taking a deep breath, the ice impaled in her heart shattered. All the memories, the moments, opportunities, all the words left unspoken or hidden in teases and punches, all the glances and the touches, and every single fucking moment with the man she loved she poured through her eyes into Kazui, willing him to understand. He let out a cry and drove himself faster but Rukia smiled, her body going limp in his arms at the flash of clarity that had dusted those brown orbs. He understood.
Bum. Ba-dum. Bum.
The beats of her heart slowed, blood rushing into her ears. Her skull felt light and her body felt like she could float away if only she would close her eyes, melt into the darkness whispering in her mind. She was ready, actually about to do just that, when she felt it. And then suddenly, she was tethered to the man whose soul she was bound to. Their unbreakable bond flowed between them, anchoring between him and her as a red string. It looked like Fate hadn't given up on them either. She couldn't feel Kazui's arms any more or hear his heartbeat.
Her body was fading. All she could feel was that reiatsu she knew as intimately as she knew her own. If her mind had been able to function, she would have been amazed at the way his reiatsu had thundered over Karakura in a dark, angry roar and she would have felt the grief etched into his soul as it drowned him in a hollow, blinding ache. All she could see was that night sky above her and orange hair in her memories. All she could hear was her precious heartbeat, fading and slowing with every second that passed. All she could taste was the metallic, bitter tinge of her blood and the slight tang of hope. She would keep fighting for their moment, their future, their happiness.
Hot stinging tears slid from the corners of her eyes, her vision suddenly going into a shocking clarity when Kazui halted his movements. His voice was rumbling through her body, speaking frantically in a panic to someone. She wanted to reassure him, let him know she wasn't going down without a fight and that she would keep fighting. No one gave her the chance. She was jerked from Kazui's arms, head tilted towards a face she recognized and that sudden moment of clarity overtook her.
Her vision brightened so she could see that tamed mess of orange hair. It was no longer as spiky and was twisted from what she presumed had been a peaceful slumber before his rude awakening. His forehead had less wrinkles from scrunching those brows together all those years as a teen. They were scrunched now though over dark, roiling brown irises, emotions tumbling through them like molten amber. Grief, regret, longing, anger, sorrow, fear, desperation. And the last time she had seen this emotion, he had been standing in the white of the Senkaimon saying goodbye for the last time.
Here they were, doing it again. Except this goodbye was permanent and she still didn't have a name for the emotion in his eyes. It wasn't something cliché like love. It was stronger, deeper, than that and stretched far beyond the soul. Brown glimmered with it now but that could also be the tears welling in those grief-stricken pools, drowning her so she couldn't come up for air. Her body was nestled carefully against him, one hand holding the back of her head. She was tilted up from her hips by his hand at the back of her head as he knelt on his knees next to her in the blood slowly pooling beneath her.
His other was pressed firmly against the hole in her chest, trying to stem the flow of blood but she could see the helplessness scattered over his face. She didn't feel him pressing against her wound at all, only a sense of pressure and the feeling that there should be pain but there wasn't. His mouth was parted and lips turned downwards as he mumbled little things she couldn't hear over the rush of her blood in her head. She could see Orihime off to the side holding Kazui as he cried into her arms, hugging his mother tight. Orihime's wide, gray-brown orbs were glistening with unshed tears, hands covering her mouth and face pale.
One of Orihime's Santen Kesshun glowed next to her and slowly shook her head. The distraught woman wrapped her arms around her son and cried into his orange hair, her body trembling as she, too, fell to her knees. Kazui and Orihime, mother and son, held tight to one another as Ichigo – the idiotic, stubborn fool – kept his hand pressed firmly into her wound, now shouting at her, to try and keep her alive. Her lids grew heavy and she fought to keep them open as her mind began to spiral, turning and twisting until she felt nauseous and light-headed.
Willing herself, she managed to force her small, bloody hand over top of Ichigo's. His brown eyes snapped to her, hope glistening in them, and she smiled, eyes wet, and pulled his hand away. Hers dropped to the cement just as fingers curled against her hand in a bruising grip. As the spinning grew more violent, her body slowly growing colder and more numb, she could hear him. His soul was shouting at her, reiatsu pressing insistently – desperately – against her own.
"No, no, no, no….No! You can't die, Rukia! You can't! I didn't fucking – Live, damn it! It wasn't…..IT WASN'T MEANT TO END LIKE THIS!"
Blood trickled out of her cold, trembling lips as she croaked the last words she would ever speak, looking into the brown eyes she loved. "B-Be happy."
His eyes widened and she smiled softly before, finally, she succumbed to the darkness. The scream of her name, her last words to Kazui shouted at his father shaking Rukia's prone form, Orihime's quiet but resigned look of defeat at the words, Kazui breaking down Soul Society's Gates to find her daughter and kiss her senseless despite the fear of the future…..She never got to see all these things. The secret to beating Yhwach had been there all along and all they had needed was to allow themselves to live that future.
The secret to beating Yhwach's futures?
Happiness.