Author's Note: Apologies for the slow update to Sunshine and Shadows. I promise that I'm working on the next chapter (Chapter IX), but seeing that it's a smut chapter and I've never written smut before...well...combine that with a lack of motivation and a horrid case of writer's black and it's just a bad recipe for no updates. That said, I've decided to release two of my older one-shots in the meantime. I hope you enjoy them!

"It hurts." he gasped.

She knelt beside him in the mud and pulled his head into her lap, paying no mind to the blood and dirt now staining her shihakushō.

"Rukia... I'm scared." He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to blink the blood out of his eyes, his hands lying numb and useless at his sides. She ran her fingers through his hair and wiped the blood from his eyes.

He glanced to his lifeless opponent, then back up at the young woman cradling him in his final moments. "Will I...will I come back? As a soul, I mean, will I... go to the Soul Society?"

She finally gathered up the courage to reply, "We don't know, Ichigo." Her tears fell freely now, mixing with the rain that pattered gently on the grounds of the Soul Society.

He let out a short breath of air, struggling to say his next words, the most important he would ever speak, "T-tell... Tell Inoue... Tell Orihime that I...that I..."

She nodded, her jaw trembling, her hands gently caressing his face. "Of course, Ichigo, of course I will."

Ichigo closed his eyes and smiled. His breaths became shallow and short, but his smile never faded. The gentle beating of the rain soon let up, and with it, his heart fluttered and stopped.

Rukia stroked his strong features and tousled his orange hair for the last time. She bent down and kissed his forehead, whispering quietly, "Farewell, Ichigo, Substitute Shinigami. You can finally lay down your sword and rest, knowing that you have saved us all."

She tilted her head back as the clouds parted and a single ray of light shone through the blackness. There was finally hope.