Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Tite Kubo does. This story, however, is mine.
Guardian Angel
Rukia knew that what she was considering broke every rule in the book and several more that fell under the category of basic common sense, but she didn't care. That smug look on Renji's face crawled under her skin and stayed there, rankling; she could all but hear him laughing at her now.
"It has everything to do with talent!"
Those words were what ultimately caused the petite spitfire to snap. Talent? Renji Abarai, the wannabe Shinigami who couldn't perform a simple shakkaho without looking like a Hollow post-exposure to Ryujinn Jakka, dared to say that she had no talent?
That was a declaration of war as far as Rukia was concerned, and she'd be damned if she did anything shy of leaving the earth salted in her wake. Making up her mind one last time the Class Two student took a deep breath and concentrated, gathering raw kido energy around her and weaving it into the shape of a shroud designed to completely dampen her reiatsu.
It was an attempt to emulate a technique she had seen while reading surreptitiously over Renji's shoulder as he burned holes through a Class One kido book with his furious stare, and for being self-taught the spell came out surprisingly well. Confident that this impromptu cloak would hold strong and hide her reiatsu completely, Rukia cast a quick 'Kyakko' kido to shield her from physical sight as well and ran down the corridor like her heels were on fire.
"Everyone in their groups?" Hisagi asked, hoping his boredom wasn't reflected in his tone.
Yet another day featuring yet another stultifying training exercise; seriously, why did they always slot him into these snore-fests? He was being given missions from the Gotei 13, for God's sake, and they expected him to take baby-sitting without going insane? The only redeeming part of the whole thing was Kanisawa; she might have been as boring to talk to as Captain Tosen when he waxed philosophically about justice, but at least she made for nice eye-candy. That was the problem with every girl he'd run across in the Academy: they were so obsessed with grades and studying and climbing the Gotei ladder that even the concept of having fun was as foreign to them as pacifism was to a Hollow.
"I'm Sixth Year student Hisagi," he said evenly. "Today, we're going into the Human World for combat practice against Dummy Hollows. Aoga, Kanisawa and myself will supervise, but you'll be on your own as far as the actual combat is concerned. All right, let's go! Unlock the gate!"
The girl with short, light-brown hair looked over at her classmate as they walked towards the gate at the front of the group.
"You sure sounded upbeat back there, Shuhei-kun," Kanisawa teased. I'm surprised they're still awake."
Hisagi brushed off the jab with a grunt and passed through the gate, bracing himself for the clenching sensation that felt like he was being flattened by a rolling pin.
Yep, another day wasted in the Human World that could have been spent racing to the bottom of a sake bottle with Lieutenant Shiba. God damn it.
Rukia broke off from the pack of students and ducked into a side-alley to catch her breath, reveling in her victory. She'd done it! She had snuck right under Renji's nose, walked through the gate right next to that red-headed, cocky punk and he'd never even glanced her way.
Now, however, Rukia found herself in a bit of a predicament. There was no way she could pass herself off as a Class One student, but she didn't want to just stand around and wait for the trainees to finish up. Barely resisting the urge to smack her forehead and cursing herself for being so brash, Rukia sighed and began to walk towards where she felt Renji's reiatsu. Maybe, if this Kyakko spell held up a bit longer, she could give him a nasty shock or two and he'd never know who or what had hit him. Before she had gotten very far, though, Rukia felt something tug at her peripheral vision. It felt like a Hollow, but when she spun around the petite student found herself staring at nothing but air.
Shaking it off as a simple knee-jerk reaction, Rukia kept walking towards her friend's reiatsu. Rather than Renji, however, the first person whom her eyes fell upon was the Sixth Year instructor, Hisagi Shuhei. He struck quite an imposing, authoritative figure with spiked choker and tattoo on his cheek, but Rukia could tell that he was bored out of his skull. Not that she could blame him, of course; she'd be dragging her fingernails through the concrete by now if she were in his position.
Beginning to feel the strain from keeping her reiatsu-shielding cloak up for so long, Rukia was about to drop the shroud altogether when she felt the nagging reiatsu tug at the back of her head again. Turning around, her eyes widened in shock and the breath was forced from her lungs as Rukia looked up to behold the biggest Hollow she had ever seen in her entire life. It had no hands, but appendages that were shaped like scythes and large enough to shear someone in half with little more than a flick of the Hollow's wrist.
And it had Hisagi dead to rights.
The instructor had no idea that the Hollow equivalent of the Grim Reaper on two tons of steroids was about to come barreling down on him like a tsunami, and his colleagues were equally oblivious. Rukia knew that a frantic, disembodied voice was more likely to create confusion rather than expedite getting the hell out of the way, so she did the next best thing to shouting out a warning: she charged right up to Shuhei and blindsided him with all of her might, sending the pair of them skidding along the pavement and out of the path of the gruesome, pointy instrument of death.
"What the hell?" Hisagi grunted out as soon as he got his breath back, but when he looked around for his savior there was no one in sight. Instead, the only thing he saw was a red stream of blood and a body flying through the air like a ragdoll as Kanisawa's corpse was shrugged off by the monstrous Hollow like it was swatting a fly.
"You bastard," Aoga shouted as he drew his zanpakuto and charged blindly, "how dare you kill Kanisawa!"
"Aoga, don't!" Shuhei called out, but his warning was wasted as his fellow instructor soon found himself scattered in pieces on the ground.
"Shit!" Hisagi cursed, reeling at how quickly this had gone from a routine training exercise to a killing field. "How did a Huge Hollow get so close to us without anyone noticing? Barrier team," he shouted into the communicator resting around his neck, "what's going on? Barrier team, respond!"
As the monster readied itself for another attack, the Instructor drew his zanpakuto and called out to the petrified students.
"Freshmen, get the hell out of here!"
Not needing to be told twice, the newbies scattered to the four winds and left Shuhei to face down the juggernaut himself. He barely managed to get off a hasty request for reinforcements before a blast of green energy forced him to dodge sharply to the side, a thin tendril of the attack brushing against the communicator and shattering it. Now, Hisagi realized as a knot formed in his stomach, he was alone.
"Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws! Hado number 33: Sokatsui!"
Well, not quite alone.
The tattooed Shinigami's eyes widened in surprise as a plume of blue fire shot out of nowhere, slamming into the Hollow and forcing it back with a shout of pain and rage. Seeing an opening, Shuhei leapt up high into the air and struck out, aiming right for the center of the Hollow's mask. One of those damn claws was faster, though, and smashed into him before he could connect with his zanpakuto.
Rukia watched in horror as Hisagi careened through the air towards the concrete; she didn't know any specific bakudo spells to cushion his fall, but if she didn't do something he was going to be nothing more than a red, mushy splatter on the ground very shortly. Focusing intently and dropping the reiatsu cloak along with her Kyakko spell to improve her concentration, Rukia drew together as much raw kido energy as she could and arrayed it like a makeshift net behind the falling Shinigami. The barrier absorbed most of the impact, but it broke apart shortly before Shuhei had reached the ground. He took the rest of the fall on his back, but quickly propelled himself up onto his feet just as Rukia came running up to him.
"Hisagi, can you stand?"
The Instructor shook his head sharply to clear it before replying, his voice still scratchy from shock and his right eye forced shut by blood flowing from a three-pronged wound.
"What does it look like I'm—hey, what the hell are you doing?!"
"I'm saving us both from getting turned into shish kabob!" Rukia shouted back as she hauled the older Shinigami behind her by his arm as she ran. "For a teacher, that was a really stupid question!"
"You can stop trying to dislocate my shoulder, kid," Shuhei growled as he pulled away from Rukia and began to run alongside her, matching her stride for stride. "Who are you, anyway? I don't remember you from this morning."
"Is now really a good time for small talk?" Rukia snapped back, mystified at how little sense men were capable of making. She thought Renji was the worst she would see, but asking a question like that in the midst of running for your life took the cake.
"If backup doesn't come and I'm going to die here, I'd at least like to know the name of the last person I'm ever going to see," Hisagi shot back between breaths, and Rukia realized he had a good point after all, if a bit fatalistic.
"I'm Rukia," she said after a heartbeat. "I'm a Class Two student at the Academy."
"How'd you sneak through the gate, then?" he asked, his voice curious but also tinged with something Rukia thought she recognized as… interest? A smirk formed on her lips, fueled by the inhibition-blasting combination of adrenaline and raw attraction.
"Trade secret," she answered smugly. "Get us out of this mess, and maybe I'll tell you."
"You drive a hard bargain, Rukia," Hisagi parried with a gleam in his visible eye as the pair dashed into an empty clearing and the older Shinigami prepared to open up an emergency gate, "but I'll see what I can do."
Rukia stood lookout as Shuhei worked on tearing open a return path to Soul Society, but she found her eyes being drawn back again and again to the poised, surprisingly calm warrior. Despite his injuries, there was no sign of fatigue in his stance and his reiatsu still smoldered with so much focused, tempered power that just standing in its presence was enough to render her breathless. It was a much more pleasurable kind of breathless than the state the Hollow had left her in earlier, though…
Realizing where her thoughts were heading and suddenly grateful that Hisagi was too occupied to see a light blush creep across her face, Rukia shook it off and frowned deeply. What was with her all of a sudden? She'd never felt like this before, even with Renji hounding after her day in and day out, so what had changed?
That train of thought was promptly derailed, blown up and sent hurtling off of a cliff, however, when the reiatsu of the Hollow from earlier suddenly crashed down on top of her. Turning her now-wide eyes skyward, Rukia could only stare in shock as the monster she had warded off once before raised one of his scythe-like hands, split it into several smaller blades and sent them screaming towards her.
Right before the deadly claws made contact with the violet-eyed Shinigami, though, a sword appeared in front of her and blocked them with a grinding hiss.
"You all right, Rukia?" she heard as Hisagi's concerned voice penetrated through the mist of her shellshock. "Damnit, rookie, say something!"
"Who the hell are you calling a rookie?" she shouted back, her wounded pride slicing clean through the daze. "I didn't fail the exams twice, now did I, dog-collar boy?"
"Dog-collar boy…?" Shuhei repeated, awed by the temerity of this girl. Not many people would have the guts to blatantly insult the one person keeping them from being utterly lacerated, but clearly Rukia was not 'most people' by any stretch of the imagination.
And that was just fine with Hisagi.
"Do you want to get diced up finer than tuna sashimi prepared by Captain Zaraki?" he shot back, letting his guard ease just enough to make a point as the claws creeped closer. "Because if that's the case, keep talking like that and I'll be more than happy to oblige you, midget."
"What the hell did you just call me, you one-eyed pirate-wannabe?!" Rukia fumed, but the older Shinigami just smirked.
"Hey, I'm calling it like I see it, Rukia," he shot back. "Or don't see it, as the case may be…"
"When this is over, I'm going to kill you."
Shuhei might have laughed then in a good circumstance, but this circumstance didn't qualify as 'good' in any mindset other than the psychotic one adopted by everyone in the Eleventh Division.
"Just shut up and get out of the way, rookie," he said with an edged tone. "Once I take care of this bastard, I'll kick your microscopic ass to your heart's content."
Not even giving Rukia the chance to spit back a snappy retort, Hisagi used a quick utterance of the 'Sho' kido to shove her away before rolling out from under the Hollow's claws, springing to his feet and praying that this next attack went off without a hitch.
"Hado number 63: Soren Sokatsui!"
It was the first time he'd tried an incantation bypass on a spell that high, and to Hisagi's immense relief it launched without roasting him in the process. The twin blue plumes of flame arced towards the Huge Hollow and slammed into its mask, injuring it but not finishing the job. It was enough, though, to make the monster roar in anguish and retreat back to Hueco Mundo through a rift in space.
"That's how you cast a 'Sokatsui', rookie," Shuhei said with a smirk, jerking his head to the side to avoid a right hook from the aforementioned enraged rookie.
"Just because I'm better than you doesn't mean you have to get jealous, Rukia," he continued as he drew his zanpakuto and returned to his earlier task of tearing open a gate. Before he got very far, though, both of the Shinigami were all but knocked flat on their asses as a tremendous amount of reiatsu slammed into them out of the blue.
"What the hell is this?" Rukia gasped as the air around them began to warp, tear and turn black.
"Garganta," Hisagi said seriously. "Hollows use them to travel from Hueco Mundo into the Human World. From the looks of it," he finished as a horde of Huge Hollows suddenly emerged before them, "that scumbag called in his friends on the way out."
"Do you have a plan, genius?" Rukia asked, edging closer to the older warrior and praying that his answer was yes.
"Honestly?" Hisagi replied. "Not at all."
The violet-eyed rookie almost choked on her own tongue, clinging to Shuhei's arm in anger and shaking it while drawing what reassurance she could from his reiatsu on the sly.
"Are you kidding me?!" she barked. "What happened to the 'Ooh, I can bypass a Soren Sokatsui' Hisagi from a minute ago?"
"I'd like to see you try that, shorty," the older Shinigami snapped back. "And if you don't mind, I'd rather not spend my last moments bickering with someone who barely comes up to my sternum."
"You got a better idea, one-eye?"
Hisagi looked down at the petite spitfire and was impressed to see that, if she was as scared as he assumed she was, Rukia was hiding it like a pro. Or like someone who had grown up in the Rukongai, just like him. He was going to regret not having a chance to unravel the enigma that was this feisty Shinigami, but at least he could spend his final breaths giving it a shot.
"Yeah," he said smugly, leaning over slightly while sliding a hand under Rukia's chin and tilting her face up towards his, "I do."
Rukia was far from a blushing maiden; she had experimented with kissing before with Renji on more than one occasion, but nothing they had ever done came remotely close to the kiss she was experiencing right now. Maybe it was the prospect of imminent death, the fact that Hisagi Shuhei was as attractive as he was infuriating or some combination of the two. Whatever this was that made it feel like electricity was over-stimulating her nerves, though, Rukia was sure of one thing: she wanted it to happen again, and some more times after that.
As Hisagi pulled away from the kiss, he looked into those amethyst orbs and saw past the armor that everyone who grew up in the Rukongai's higher-numbered districts always erected to hide their emotions. What he saw there was the stubborn, determined core that drove the girl who had been intriguing and infuriating him in equal measure for the past hour, a scrappy fighter with an instinctive urge to survive and excel, no matter what the obstacle in front of her happened to be. In short, Rukia was everything Shuhei had long since assumed to be nonexistant in the stifling bureaucracy of the Academy.
"Well, rookie," he said with a tinge of melancholy lacing his voice, "it was nice knowing you."
Before Rukia could reply, smack Hisagi for being so audacious or climb halfway up his body and kiss his brains out, a lilting, unconcerned voice broke in from over to her left.
"We come in at a bad time, Captain Aizen?" Lieutenant Ichimaru asked. "Looks like they'd be happier on their own, ya ask me."
The pair of Shinigami split apart like they'd been struck by lightning, and Hisagi turned sharply to acknowledge the new arrivals after subtly clearing his throat.
"Captain Aizen, Lieutenant Ichimaru!" he called out. "What are you doing here, sirs?"
"We received your distress signal, and have come to assist," Aizen said calmly as the Captain and his subordinate stepped forward to face down the Hollows. "You two have held out most admirably; rest for now, and we will take care of this."
Rukia caught a sidelong glance from Ichimaru as he walked past her, and chills swept down her spine at the sight of the Lieutenant's fox-like face and gleefully mocking smile. When she came back to herself, Rukia realized that she was clinging around Hisagi with one arm like a scared kid clutching a blanket.
"Might want to slow down, Rukia," the older Shinigami said with that smug tone of his. "Unless you're into this sort of thing; I could work with that."
"Shut up, Hisagi," she snapped as she detached herself from him. Rukia refused to acknowledge that the clammy feeling she had experienced a few moments earlier was completely gone now, replaced by a pleasant warm feeling that was currently coursing through her with reckless abandon. There was a surge of reiatsu nearby as Aizen finished off the last of the Hollows, and the pair of high-ranking Shinigami walked back towards the students they had rescued from certain death.
"Shall we?" Aizen asked, effortlessly opening a gate with his zanpakuto. "That wound looks like it could use some treatment, Hisagi-kun."
Rukia snickered at the borderline patronizing form of address, having to fight hard to keep from moving up to full-blown guffaws when Shuhei shot her an especially dirty look. Soon enough the four Shinigami had passed through the gate and closed it behind them, leaving the blood-soaked training ground for good.
When she exited the Class Two lecture auditorium the next morning, Rukia was greeted by a familiar face as Hisagi leaned casually up against the hallway wall. The wound on the right side of his face had scarred over into three distinct, dark lines, and his eyes gleamed with something Rukia couldn't quite pin down.
"Hey, midget," he said with a smirk, oblivious to the stares he seemed to be getting for going out of his way to directly address a freshman, let alone someone in Class Two. "You hungry?"
"I was until I saw your face just now," she parried with a smile. "How many mirrors do you go through in a month, Hisagi?"
"Ouch," the older Shinigami replied with mock hurt. "No wonder you're stuck in Class Two, Rukia, if you spend all that time in lecture thinking up those zingers instead of paying attention."
The violet-eyed student's brow furrowed as she failed to think of a comeback, huffing and stomping off towards the cafeteria while Hisagi fell in step beside her, chuckling.
"Seriously though, Rukia, I've been meaning to ask you," Shuhei spoke after a few moments of amicable silence, "what got you put into Class Two? I've seen you fight, and there're punks in Class One you'd run circles around."
Rukia lowered her head and mumbled something indistinct.
"What was that?" he asked, and Rukia replied once more. This time, it was just loud enough for Hisagi to make out the answer.
"Kendo," she said. "I can nail those kido spells with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back, but put a sword in my hand and I'm useless."
"I could always teach you the basics," Hisagi offered. "Swordsmanship happens to be my specialty."
Rukia glanced over briefly to gauge Shuhei's sincerity, and found nothing in his expression that made her doubt his words.
"I'd appreciate the help, Hisagi," she replied, and her companion smiled.
"The Eleventh Squad's auxiliary dojo is always empty after dark… what would you say to meeting there at nine tomorrow night?"
"I'd say I think this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Shuhei-sensei," Rukia replied smoothly, drawing out his name and the new honorific with a deliberately teasing tone. Hisagi had to fight to keep a shiver from wracking his spine; he wasn't quite sure what he'd just gotten himself into, but one thing was certain:
He couldn't wait for tomorrow night's training session.
A/N: UPDATE: This story is no longer a one-shot. The second chapter is currently in production, and will be completed soon. This pairing came out of a random brainstorming session I had with MatsuMama the other day (Mad props to her, as always), and I unexpectedly became more and more enamored with this pairing as I went along.