Best Served Cold
A story of black, sweet revenge. IchigoxRukia Inspired by Goku's Daughter's "I love" series
Rated M
Disclaimer: all characters belong to Tite Kubo
Chapter 2: The Last of the Dead Shinigami (Godlessness Incarnate)
These are the stories about the deaths of all members of the assassin squad, The Shinigami (Godlessness Incarnate).
A string of quick narratives that becomes a story that cannot be ignored or glossed over.
Remember: it is a story, but not the story.
Over the course of one year almost four years ago, five certain people from Japan were brutally killed. Two were women; and three were men. One the women was a minor; one of the men was very old. Three were killed in their hotel room, and two in their homes. Of the three that were killed in their hotel rooms, two occurred overseas in France and Brazil respectively. However, of the two that were killed in their homes, only one death was considered to be accidental, and that death occurred in a fire. Three had family members: a nephew; a daughter; and two brothers. Those family members were also killed.
Separately, all were living under an assumed alias, with names stolen from newborns and very well forged documents. Despite their varied ages, appearances, and assumed occupations, each had several bank accounts located both nationally and internationally. The individual accounts of four people had balances within six figures; the other one had a dollar amount that was assumed to be much greater.
Four were found with a weapon on their person, the deadliness of each categorized within a wide range: a short Samurai dagger; a well-worn katana; semiotic pistol; and household materials could have been used to make a homemade bomb.
Unfortunately, for anybody from the outside looking in, none of these similarities would connect one of these five people's deaths to the others. And the reason for that was because these five, all members of The Shinigami, worked to make sure that in the event they died, whether of natural or violent or even accidental causes, the others wouldn't be exposed. It was the way these five assassins worked.
Again, all of these separate deaths are notable because they are central to the story of the death of the last Shinigami. Had the separate deaths of these five individuals been pieced together, it would have revealed that they were purposely targeted. It will remain unknown if the deaths of one of the five remained unknown by the others. And the reasons for why they were killed will also remain unknown by the outside world, possibly forever.
However.
Remember that these stories were important because they put a much larger story of revenge and retribution into motion.
For, you see, The Shinigami (Godlessness Incarnate) technically weren't made of five members. They were made of seven.
Two other individuals—a young woman, aged 26, and a slightly younger man, aged 23—were also found. Brutalized in their home, an apartment they had been living in peacefully about a year before the first Shinigami was unknowingly being killed. And as far as any sort of weaponry on their person: aside from cooking utensils that could have been used in self-defense, they had no obvious artillery on their person or inside their home. They had been considered dead on arrival by the first responders.
This young man and young woman were not killers at first glance. But they had been killers and Shinigami at one time in their lives.
However.
It is rude to consider them the "last of the dead Shinigami."
After all…even though they had been pronounced dead by first responders, they didn't stay that way.
Eight months and fourteen days to the day the man known to few as "Kurosaki Ichigo" was pronounced dead en route to Karakura Hospital and then alive, but in critical condition, and then comatose, he awakened, practically lurching to an upright position from his hospital bed and straining the tubes in his arm. The screams that had been waiting to burst from his chapped lips and clenched teeth caught in his throat, almost choking him. His chest heaved in panic, hazel eyes shifted across the dimly lit room, to the line-up of a pair of hospital chairs, to the gap between the pea-green curtains where he could see the setting sun across the Tokyo skyline…it had to be the Tokyo skyline. …He could smell antiseptic and rubbing alcohol in the air, and the mild scent of soap on his own skin; he heard the unfamiliar ticking and then found where the sound was coming from, a black clock with a large face and white numbers placed beside the hospital room's mounted TV; he could feel different types of cotton against his otherwise bare skin: his thin hospital gown and the fuzzy, blanket that may have once been lavender, but now was just a very faded, light purple.
He was alive.
And suddenly, he could feel the worst pain he had ever felt in his life. In his left leg; in his arm; in his hand; in…in his head, on the side of his head, like the entire side, everything. His body had a brief, but painful spasm to defend itself from a blow that had already done its damage. The next scream to leave his mouth was short and harsh and raspy.
And then everything that happened eight months and fourteen years ago rushed back to him. The footsteps and yells of the people that had found them and invaded their home, the feeling of fists bruising his body; his heartbeat thick in his ears; the voices and ghostly feral laughter in his ears; the gunshots; the sight of the black robed, crowned bastard Death, and—
"Rukia." He looked around him with more physical effort. Trying to find the person he remembered had been beside him in those last moments. His body felt stiff and heavy. "Rukia…" His fingers grasped at the side of his bed where the bars were. He gripped the thin, welded metal bars to better scan the room.
…He was alone.
"Rukia!" He screamed in a pitch much higher than his vocal range, beyond what his vocal cords could physically handle after eight months and fourteen days of disuse, something bloodcurdling. The sheer panic of what her not being her meant gave life to his dead limbs. He thrashed.
"…Rukia! Rukia!...RUKIA!"
There was a new sound in the room, the sound of his door opening. His brown eyes searched for something small and sharp, a plastic knife or a syringe…something that could stab, draw blood. He was ready to attack whoever was opening this door. He'd kill whoever it was this time; it didn't matter if his hand hurt; he could and would make a fist, a loose one. And he didn't care if he felt like he couldn't move; he'd kill in one stroke. His senses were heightened; spit gathered in his mouth.
It was a nurse.
"It's okay! It's okay!" The bespectacled woman in a white nurse's uniform said to him as she ran inside his room. She made a motion to run to the bed, but stopped dead in her tracks; shaken by the hazel-eyed death glare that met hers. He was from the world of killers, cognizant enough to remember to be observant; that it wasn't that hard for someone who had no reason to be in a hospital to sneak in and do a more thorough job. He needed to be sure she was who she appeared to be: she was about as young as he was; if those glasses were real, she couldn't do anything to hurt him without knocking them off; the look on her face was genuine shock, those eyes of hers doe-like; a quick glance revealed no strange bulges of a concealed weapon in her uniform. At the very least, she was a medical student.
"Y, y, you're fine!" Her hands lifted and gently pushed against the air, pantomiming what she wished she could do to calm him down. "My name is Honsho Chizuru! You're in the hospital! Y, y, you're fine, Sasaki-san! Sasaki-san!"
He didn't even notice the mispronunciation of his surname. "Where's Rukia?!"
"Rukia?"
"Where's Rukia?!"
She dropped her arms and again fumbled with her words. "W, who's Rukia?!"
It was the worst words he'd ever heard. He screamed the name again.
"What's going on?" Two more nurses, about as young in appearance as Honsho Chizuru, practically ran into the room, two pairs of eyes as big as plates at the sight of the awoken, clenched jawed and glaring patient and the sound of his heart monitor beeping erratically in the room. "…He's awake?!...Why is he screaming?"
"I don't know! Michiru-chan, please get Tsukabishi-san. Natsui-chan, help me!"
The more petite of the two, a brunette with her hair cut in a short bob, ran out the room, and Ichigo watched as the one that called herself "Honsho" and the other one, another brunette with curly hair, approached him.
"Sasaki-san, please let Natsui-chan and me help you." They proceeded to touch his chest, pressing his body back into his bed. They grit their teeth as he pushed through the force. "Sasak…Natsui-chan, get something to calm him down!"
"Right, right, right…" The young nurse pulled away from the struggle, panic on her face. There was the sound of metallic instruments being moved. "Uh, uh, uh…." The young nurse looked over at the door, attracted to movement out the corner of her eye. "Wait, you shouldn't be here right now! He's in shock! Please! We're trying to give him a sedative! Please, step outside for now, please!"
Ichigo looked over at the door and calmed, unaware of the hands pressed against his chest now. His felt his arms being clamped, one of the young women taking a risk and bear-hugging him to keep him from hurting them.
There was a man and a woman standing in the doorway, easy to recognize and hard to ignore with unreadable faces.
His parents. His mentors.
"The Goddess"…and "The Bard."
There was a pinch as the needle broke through his skin.
The dizzying feeling of the anesthesia hit him like a tidal wave, and even though he was a fighter and had been since he was seven years old, he immediately gave in to the medication.
He woke up again in what felt like hours. The lighting was again dim in the room, the beep of his heart monitor steady and quiet. The bars on either side of his bed were still propped up. His eyes slid over to where he had seen the sun before; it was completely dark outside.
…He wasn't alone.
The woman was the first to realize he was awake. "Ichigo." Her lips stretched out in a Cheshire Cat smile, but it lacked the smug, sure feel it usually had.
"...Yoruichi-san." He called her by the name she told him to call her when he was little. He noticed her black maxi dress, her bare arms, the sight of her beautiful black hair with its thin, gray streaks in its high ponytail. The look of her being normal, a civilian.
"You're awake." The dark-skinned, mature beauty walked over to him, the sound of her sandals slapping against the floor, and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "And you look the same as always." Her warm hand pressed where her lips had left, running through his hair like it usually had when he used to get sick as a child.
Her yellow eyes searched his hazel colored ones and he could immediately feel that they were hiding something from him. Something important. "Wh—"
"…I knew you wouldn't leave us behind. You're a bit too stubborn for death." A male's voice spoke out, and the other sounds of the room, his heart monitor, his low breathing, were interrupted by the hollow sounds of wooden geta walking across the hospital floor. "…But just the same, and again, I'm happy you're awake, Ichigo-kun."
Mixed feelings of foreboding and relief filled Ichigo's bones with the sound of this somewhat whimsical and carefree voice. He stared at the second face hovering over him, inhaled the sudden smell of peppermint candies. The wispy, graying stubble on the chin and messy ash-blond hair. The familiar stripped white-and-green hat and the pair of gray eyes that stared at him below its brim.
The Bard.
He made a move with his right hand for some water.
With the deft movements that made her "The Goddess," Yourichi's hands moved around the food tray adjacent to his bed and the wall, the quick, quiet sound of water being poured into a cup audible in his ears. He drank the water gratefully, and asked for more for a second time.
The air was punctuated with the empty sound of his cup being slammed on the food tray. Honey-brown stared into gray. "…Urahara."
Urahara watched Yourichi step away from the two of them. "…I'll be getting Ushoda-san," she said.
"Okay." The sandal-clad man lovingly stared after her retreating figure and then at the bedridden young man. "Listen to me." Urahara's voice was still carefree in tone, but there was a hard edge that could not be unrecognized. "Before we have company. …Your name is still 'Sasaki Jiro.' And Rukia's is 'Sasaki Yuki.' Remember that before Shihoin returns with the doctor."
Ichigo gripped the side of his hospital bed, trying his best to sit upright. "Urahara! Rukia…where is Rukia?" The urgency was back in his voice. "Where's—"
The older man placed a hand on Ichigo's shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze. "Don't act like that. Rukia's alive…she woke up two days ago, asking for you…"
This seemed to be what Ichigo needed to hear for now. He sank back into his bed. She was alive. They...they were all safe.
Urahara straightened up, and his hat shrouded his gray eyes once more. "…She wouldn't have left you behind in this world, Ichigo."
Five bullets. And according to his living, breathing mountain of a doctor, five fully healed bullet wounds.
One embedded in his shin. It mostly came out clean in the surgery, apart from a sliver or two, and while they were worried initially, it was safe from infection. A very lucky turnout.
Three more bullet holes on the left side of his body. One in his forearm, one in his shoulder, and one that went through his palm. Again, he was very lucky as the damage was not too serious. All wounds healed without infection, and with physical therapy, he would be able to hold heavy objects in his hand without complications.
And a steel plate embedded on the side of his head. This bullet proved to be the one that was the hardest to remove, even harder from the one in his shin. Its full removal took three hours. Its easy removal and placement of the metal was called a miracle—a miracle and an attest to the skill of his doctor and the rest of the team at Karakura Hospital. Although, he would never be able to easily walk through airport security again, his doctor joked.
He was grateful, of course. To have been saved; to have been alive and taken care of; to be awake now, a cheater of Death once again. He was tired, but didn't want to sleep. He'd been sleeping since January, had slept through those last moments when he should've been fighting; slept through his own birthday. He just listened to his surgeon go through the specifics, filling in the blanks he didn't know and talking on and on. His brow furrowed as he tried his hardest to remember that day and the faces of the people who had tried to put him in the ground…
The only information the doctor didn't give him was the one Ichigo really wanted to know. And he was still trying his best to not ask the one question he had been demanding to know the answer since being brought out of the Hell he'd been living in.
...Rukia...
After an assertion that echoed Urahara's request that his recovery not be released in the news for the sake of privacy, he was finally allowed to see her.
He watched as she was wheeled into his room, as beautiful as he remembered her, but even tinier than usual; the lavender hospital robe practically swaddled her. His heart lurched; he was soothed. Those eyes of hers glowed when they met his glance, the most important part of the pleasant, elegant performance he knew she remembered to put on, even now after coming from the edge of death itself. But they were as big as he remembered yet clouded to keep him from knowing what it is was he truly wanted to know.
Her smile was half-hearted, nervous that they were surrounded by so many that didn't know them. "…You took too long to wake up, baka."
The sneer on his face was practically automatic. He almost reminded her that she had only been awake for a few days longer than him. But he softened. "I'm sorry."
The thin mask he finally noticed she was wearing, the one that she had put on to let everyone think everything was okay and she was okay, cracked slightly. She was fully vulnerable and flustered, uncomfortable by the others hovering around them. "…Everyone, please leave." She whispered.
The sounds of movement and that staccato of wooden sandals walking across the floor receded. The hospital door made slight squeaking sound, one he hadn't noticed earlier, as it was closed with a quiet click.
Rukia looked up at him and her eyes were glassy.
He stared at her, his wife, and waited for her say something.
Tears slipped from her eyes.
And then he knew. About…Them.
"Ichigo… When I woke up, I asked for you… And then I asked about…them… And, and, and the...said…they…they didn't…"
He felt his heart spasm and then stop beating—literally; his heart monitor made absolutely no sound for what would have been two heartbeats.
Again, for the second time since his awakening, he found himself unable to speak.
Her hand grabbed his shaking wrist and pulled it towards her, making him practically lean out of the bed and moving his fingertips towards her stomach. His touch pressed against…nothing…
There was no one there.
He already knew, had felt it in his bones, but the feeling of only touching the rough cotton of her hospital robe and the flat plane of her stomach through the pale green material…the feeling of stillness inside of her, no one kicking against his hand or knowing that he was near. It made it real and unavoidable.
She stood, her hands grabbing the bars of the hospital bed.
He tried his best not to rip her gown off to expose her to him. But still, he grabbed the fabric and pulled it up, his hand shaking and her milky white thighs bare with goosebumps.
There, amongst the other scratches that marred her body, marks he didn't remember her practically perfect skin ever having before that day, New Year's Day morning, was a healed incision across her stomach. Where the two people he had promised to protect were no longer. Right where his hand always touched, right where their children had been growing inside of her right up until eight months and fourteen days ago. Now that was left of her swelling stomach was an angry gash right on the skin of the one person, the first person, he had promised to protect.
"They had cut through the placenta...and...they had lost a lot of fluid...They were...b-b-b-but the doctors said I was still a-a-alive somehow..."
Her tears fell against his skin, the sound of her soft crying magnified in his ringing ears. She kept his hand on her and sobbed, shaking with the effort. She looked so fragile.
He felt his own tears prickle in the corners of his eyes, and the pain he had been choking on for so long finally slipped through his clenched teeth, but for an altogether different reason now. He pulled his wife towards her, wanting to bring her into bed wanting to bring her as close to him as physically possible.
They hadn't survived.
His children.
The second chapter to his new life.
The life he had made with Rukia.
Together, they sat there in their shared pain, back from the dead, tears blurring their vision and rolling down their faces like rain. And the malice Ichigo felt through his whole, broken being so thick it hurt to know someone had thought he deserved to continue breathing.
He could only hold his wife as best as he could and cry out his anguish.
Chapter 2. I hope you felt as many feels in reading this chapter as I did writing it. R&R.