Even after all these years, it still made him sick inside. With a practiced hand, Ichigo set the switch on the second incendiary device. He took a step back to the sidewalk's edge and checked automatically left and right. The first device had exploded exactly as intended only seconds ago. All around him people were screaming and running, leaving a large clear area in the once-bustling downtown street. He shaded his eyes and craned his head back, up and up the façade of the skyscraper until he found his target: the third window from the left on the eleventh floor. The muscles in his arms bunched as he lobbed the device. It hit the window dead center, shattering the glass and smashing into the room inside. A flick of kido set it off, and Ichigo reached out mentally to guide the explosion pattern where he wanted.
The flames from the first device were already overtaking the ground floor. More screams pierced the air as pedestrians fled the scene and drivers abandoned cars in the middle of the street. Sirens blared in the distance. Ichigo glanced at the stopwatch hanging from a cord around his neck. Good. Still plenty of time.
He felt her reiatsu before he saw her. A compact shinigami in captain's robes was flash-stepping toward him at top speed. She appeared to dance lightly over the roofs of stopped cars. Something clenched in his chest. Out of all the shinigami in the world, the one he had tried most assiduously to avoid was now running straight toward him, zanpakutou in hand.
He glanced behind him, looking for an escape route. But she was too close, and too fast. He could outdistance her, given time, but time was not what he had at the moment. Instead, he turned to face her.
She had let her hair grow out so it fell to her shoulders once again, one stubborn strand still hanging between her deep violet eyes. Ichigo scowled. He would have given just about anything to have avoided a confrontation like this. But now there was no choice. He drew both blades and turned to face her, assuming a loose, ready stance, face expressionless.
Rukia skidded to a stop, a deep line between her brows. "Ichigo! So it is really you."
He could see the flames from the fire he had set reflected in her eyes. Squashing all his emotions into a tiny ball, he forced a smirk onto his face. "Of course. Surely, you didn't think it was an illusion?"
She snorted, and for a moment she sounded like the old Rukia, the one he remembered from long ago. "You idiot. As if you could ever fool me."
She was still slender and as tiny as he remembered, her white captain's haori fluttering in the blasts of heat shooting out into the street from the wide doors behind him. A Chappy pendant hung at her throat. But the power and density of her reiatsu had grown tremendously since their last encounter.
He attempted a casual salute. "I knew it wouldn't be long until they promoted you. You look good in a captain's haori, Rukia. What happened? Isn't Ukitake still alive?"
"You should know better than to expect I'll give out free intelligence." Her eyes darted from him to the burning building behind him. "Why are you doing this, Ichigo?" she demanded.
He shrugged. "Does it matter?" He raised his zanpakutou and began to circle to her left, looking for an opening. "You know we have to fight, now that we're on opposite sides."
"I don't want to fight you!" Rukia didn't lower her guard for an instant, matching his position. Her movements were fluid and practiced. She would be a dangerous opponent. He would have to be careful not to underestimate her. In the old days, his power had substantially outstripped hers, but now that Urahara had rejoined Soul Society his power-enhancing inventions had been coming out with frightening regularity. Ichigo had learned the hard way not to enter any battles based on previous estimates of his opponents' strength.
"Neither do I. But we have no choice." He shifted his weight and attacked, swinging Zangetsu in an overhead blow that he knew would be familiar to her. The shinigami were not the only ones who could try to get their enemies to underestimate them.
She sidestepped and blocked him easily, sweeping Sode no Shirayuki in an elegant arc. The clash of their swords rang loudly in the now-deserted street, a counterpoint to the whoosh and rush of the flames behind him, the cracking of girders and the shattering of glass.
"Ichigo, you have to tell me. At least tell me why." Her voice rose. "You owe me that at the very least!" There was a note of something he had never heard before in her voice, and Ichigo gritted his teeth. Their weapons engaged and he could feel her anguish in her sword.
Instead of answering, he shut his mouth firmly, spun and disengaged, drawing back several meters. She stood alone on the sidewalk, tiny but fierce. Her eyes narrowed and he could see the fiery conviction within that had had such an impact on him when he was still an impressionable teenager. It had made her extremely difficult to defeat. Even today, he sometimes still drew upon the early training she had given him.
He didn't want to kill her, but he needed to incapacitate her, and quickly. He didn't glance at the stopwatch on his chest but he knew the numbers were ticking down inexorably. All she had to do was delay him, and it would all be over. Bitter fear swirled in his chest at the thought of what would happen if he failed, and his chin came up and all his muscles firmed. He had to keep her from going into bankai – if he incapacitated her in that state it could cause collateral damage to the humans around them. But it had been a long day of fighting and traveling from target to target, and he was exhausted. He was no longer sure if he had the raw strength in shikai to knock her out while retaining enough control to keep from killing her.
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki," Rukia called, turning her blade in a circle. As it turned white, cold air rushed into their immediate vicinity. The flames at his back got snuffed out. Damn! If enough of the building didn't burn, he would have to start all over again.
But it was too late to think about it as she ran toward him with deadly speed. He blocked with Zangetsu and twisted. He struck with his smaller blade just under the pommel of her sword and ripped a slice in her side, careful to avoid her vital organs.
Rukia grunted and drew back, puffs of her breath emerging into the icy air as she pressed one hand to her wound. Blood spurted from between her fingers.
"Ichigo. I know this isn't you," she panted. She directed her energy to knitting the two sides of the wound together. "Just tell me what could possibly be making you work for him." He could sense from her reiatsu that she was in considerable pain, but none of it showed on her face. Her arm was steady, her sword still raised.
Once again he dashed forward, Zangetsu over his head, but at the last minute he swerved and this time nicked her on her outer thigh before she could parry. She stumbled backwards but maintained her footing. His eyes narrowed. She wasn't going all out for some reason, surprisingly, given that she was going up against Soul Society's Public Enemy Number Two. Was she delaying, waiting for the cavalry to arrive? He probed the surrounding area, trying to sense approaching reiatsu.
"I'm not working for him. I would never do that."
She drew back as if struck. "No… you can't be working with him. You can't be."
Ichigo exhaled. He supposed it didn't matter at this point if he told her. "Why not?"
"Then the rumors… are true?" Her face, already pale from blood loss, turned paler still. "You mean… you're with him –" Her voice faltered. "Do you love him then?"
Ichigo's jaw dropped. "What?" He stared at her. "No, of course not!" he sputtered. "That's crazy! How can you accuse me of such a thing? I'm not gay!"
Rukia's upper lip quivered and she laughed. "I knew that would get a rise out of you. The captain commander calls you an insane mass murderer, and you shrug it off. You turn against all your friends and ignore our messages. But question your sexual preference and you're suddenly ready to go bankai." She grinned, her face still startlingly pale. "You've got some kind of secret, and I swear I'm going to find out what it is. And what's more, I know exactly how to do so."
Ichigo knew he should be alarmed—he knew not to underestimate Rukia's tenacity—but he had glanced at his timer. Shit! Only thirty seconds to go! He needed to move, and fast. Wounded as she was, Rukia would be unable to keep up with him. He ignored her last words, spun and sped away.
"This isn't over yet! I'm sending Chappy after you, Ichigo…!"
Her voice faded as the wind rushed in his ears. He put everything he had left into his shunpo. He dashed from rooftop to rooftop, counting the street numbers mechanically as he looked for the landmark below. When he spotted it, he jumped straight into the narrow alley, landing in a muddy puddle with a huge splash, scaring a scrawny cat that yowled and leaped off a pile of trash cans.
In the dim light he saw it, gleaming faintly at the end of the alley. The tear in space of a timed garganta, slowly closing. He ran down the alley at full tilt. There were only seconds to go, and the edges of the portal were drawing closer together. He wasn't going to make it.
At the last second he launched himself into the air and dove for the garganta.
He could hear it snap shut just behind him as he tucked and rolled on the moonlit desert sands, coming to his feet in a flurry of sand, his robes swirling around him.
The tall man in white waiting for him chuckled. "Well, you cut it close, Ichigo." He lifted a panel of Ichigo's robes, sheared neatly off at the end in a clean triangle. "If that had been your foot, you would have been permanently crippled."
Ichigo lowered his brows. "I accomplished the mission, so shut up, Aizen."