I DON'T OWN BLEACH

Thank you to those who helped me out by reading it and telling me what needed improvement.

Hush, Hush

"And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired." ~Hawthorne

Chapter 7; (Unbreakable) Bonds

"I'm in trouble." Kisuke mutters. "Big trouble." Being smart enough to know he is fighting the urge to follow after the lovely woman who just waved good bye. Kisuke does the only thing a guy like him would do. He takes a shower to clear his head. Stepping out of the stall with a red towel over his wet head he slips on his bathrobe. Walking over to the bathroom mirror he swipes a hand over the layer of condensation to stare at his own face. "Ichigo..." Checking his face for cuts from shaving he wonders if he should resist the compulsion to go to her. "If go over there I will want to touch her."

Shaking his head he pulls the towel away exposing his wild blonde hair. What if he uses the excuse that he is protecting her? "No." he sighs, that would only make Ichigo angry. Making Ichigo frustrated is fun, but making her angry isn't.

Dropping his towel in the hamper near the door he moves into his lab sitting down on his thinking stool. The hem of his bathrobe parts exposing his long pale legs. So many things he could be doing pop into his head... But there is only one thing he wants to do. He can't do that! Ichigo-san is trusting him to not perv and pounce. Even though he wants to do that and more he prides himself on his self control. "I'm strong like an oak!"

Just for a moment the image of her all demure and shy... face glowing with passion flicks in his mind. Her hair down over her shoulders and one side of her silky Hello Kitty shirt is askew showing golden colored skin. She looks at him and says with a breathy tone, "But... Kisuke I've never done this before."

He jerks up from the stool deciding that his 'thinking chair' has betrayed him. Picking it up he chucks it in his closet with the rest of the old shinigami training equipment. Sliding open the next divider he walks over to get dressed, the blinking red light on his laptop going unnoticed.

Twenty minutes earlier...

Ichigo turns the corner toward the clinic, the snow still falling so fast the roads are thick with blankets of white. Her thoughts racing far ahead of her into an unknown future. Suddenly stopping she considers returning to the shoten and the warm embrace that was stolen by the cold winds. The clinic and her family home is just a simple right past the next intersection.

The place she grew up, went to school... ate uncounted nights at the dinner table with her sisters. She loves them, that is certain, but the more she thinks about what is waiting back at the shoten, the more she wonders which place she belongs. "I didn't think it through." her breath puffs, the steam caught in the next bluster of wind. Both are places with memories... good and bad. Both with people Ichigo wants to be with. "With Dad, Yuzu, and Karin I have this world." Turning her head toward the Shoten her hands tighten their hold on the strap of the bag around her shoulders with her laptop tucked inside.

The heavy snow is already filling her footprints making her marks vanish. "What can I offer Kisuke?" She isn't apart of that world. The shinigami's are long gone. Everything she did probubly locked away in some book in Soul Society. She never set out to be apart of them, but it didn't stop her from being... proud. Her power can't even be allowed to surface for fear of killing her. Ichigo's head turns back in the direction of her house, her feet dragging through the snow. "They are waiting for me."

"Tch... Acting worse than a damn hollow."

Her head lifts up the strange voice echoing inside her so familiar. "Is it him? The hollow inside is dead. It cant' be... Even he gave everything up." Lifting a hand to her chest she touches the spot over her heart. It's felt so empty without his presence, without... her powers.

"I'm not gonna have it Ichigo..."

The brisk arctic wind changes, Ichigo can feel something there now... something dark and the creeping up her spine tells her what she thinks is true before her head can turn to look at it. Her eyes grow round, as the image of her hollow, blurry and distorted comes into view. "That part of me is dead..."

"You have something I want."

"Im-possible." she whispers and suddenly the white shinigami robes blow away like snow. "W-What do you want from me?" Blinking her eyes focus on a new shape with long black wings, and an unmistakable hollow hole in it's breast.

"Your soul." The beast says, it's long hollow mask shaped into a beak.

"Shit!" Ichigo's hand instantly reaches up to her shoulder. "Shit!" She stands there for a moment trying to figure out what to do, her hands clutching at the laptop shoulder bag in fear. "No powers... I have nothing..." Oh god the fear, wells up as she sees it's mouth open and the wingspan circle around her.

"You must not get upset. Do not call out to him. This next time... might be the last."

Kisuke's voice echoes in her ears as she watches the black feathers of the huge hollow-bird scatter with the wind. The feathers vanish only to reveal metal dagger-like feathers underneath. "Ok... be calm Ichi."

The hollow ripples it's metal feathers watching his prey covering her ears in pain. "It hurts I know. But... I will be quick with you. After all... you are weak."

Ichigo's upper lip curls in disgust. It's pitying her. Something she hasn't felt in a long time. "I hate this feeling... this powerlessness!"

The bird's beak cracks against the road missing it's target. Ichigo dodges rolling under a wing unsure exactly where to go. It's too far back to the shoten... She has no options, and nowhere to go that is safe.

"Untrue! There is a barrier over your house... Isshin-san is very protective of his girls."

Oh that's right. Her eyes narrow in determination. Exhaling a deep breath she dodges a large wing and makes a mad dash for her house. If she can just run home. But, she is running away, and it's pissing her off.

"Run, run my little snack." The birds calls after her chuckling at the pointlessness of the tiny human girl with long orange hair.

"Just keeping moving." she tells herself, her feet struggling through the deep snow and fast gusts of wind. Suddenly her shoulder is hit by a wing. Stumbling Ichigo lands on her stomach in the middle of the road.

"Your blood pumping fast now? Isyour soul quaking in fright?" The bird slashes at the girls back to hear her scream in pain. "All you souls are the same to us hollow. Faceless, empty, prey..."

"We are the faceless ones? Look in a fucking mirror!" she growls managing to rise to her feet and throw her laptop at the beast. Cringing inside she turns away from the hollow-bird and makes a final dash toward her house. She isn't the same Ichigo. The power is gone... the sword, the pride, the confidence. It's all just fucking gone...

"Your kind live to feed us... just lay down and DIE already!" The bird screeches growing impatient. It leaves the ground taking to the sky, it's talon's ready to sink into the bleeding defiant woman running. "Come now! Be my victim!"

"I'm not a victim." Ichigo's hands clench in anger. She stops in her tracks and lifting her eyes up to the bird lunging toward her. Staring down at her empty palm she begins to breathe deep cleansing breaths searching her soul for an answer... "Zangetsu... I know you are there."

"Stay calm... don't call out to him. You could die!"

But the fight rises inside her. Stirring and stretching to be let lose. Its practically raging under her skin."I'm sorry Kisuke..." Ichigo feels it, the tip of a blade wanting to tear through her chest and slice into the hollow. Her eyes shine brilliant and blue just for a moment. "I'm Ichigo Kurosaki... I'll never be a victim."

Everything goes red, even the snow against her face as she hits the ground. "Is this it...? How I die?" Just as her eyes close she can see wooden sandals... an arc of more red and then eyes... beautiful blue filled with worry. Her hand reaches out to touch his pale face, bloody fingers marking crimson lines down his cheek. "Damn... Kisuke is going to be sad."

~/~

Isshin Kurosaki and Ryuken Ishida speak in hushed voices near the bedside of an orange haired girl with an oxygen mask covering her face. Both men tired from a lengthy surgery and hiding the inevitable truth about Ichigo's condition discuss her prognosis.

"I take it a spirit transfer is out of the question with her brittle soul power?"

"No." Isshin replies wiping a hand over his mouth feeling the scratch of his five o clock shadow despite it being seven in the morning. "She isn't responding to healing kidou at all."

"If this was an ordinary human I would tell the parent's to prepare them-"

"Hey!" Isshin grabs Ryuken's white coat. "She is a fighter."

"I said if." He reminds his friend looking down at the trembling hand clutching his doctor's coat. "Put her in a coma let her physical body rest. Then... hope for the best."

Kisuke watches the exchange from the small hallway in the Kurosaki clinic. Isshin insisted Ichigo stay here where her family could watch over and care for her. "I can't do anything to help her... not her human side." Tasting the frustration in his mouth, he swallows down the bitterness of his own blood. After Ryuken leaves the blonde shop owner reluctantly steps inside the patient room with his hat in his right hand. He can't think of a single thing that he should say, only what Not to say. "What would apologies do for her?" So he remains silent as Isshin injects something into Ichigo's IV.

"Three days..."

"Pardon?" Kisuke looks over to the opposite side of the bed.

"If she is going to make it..." he says pointing a hand at the monitor with Ichigo's brain and heart activity displayed. "These numbers have to remain steady for three days. If they begin to fall..."

"I understand, Isshin-san." he whispers lifting his lowered head to look at Ichigo's pale face. "She lost so much blood." He has seen her bleed and fight and claw to live, but now watching her like this is unbearable.

"Wipe off your face." Isshin says between clinched teeth roughly pushing a towel in Kisuke's empty hand. "So her sister's don't cry when they see you."

"Yes." Kisuke says quietly. Sensing the man's distress he moves to the small bathroom to wash his face. If Isshin-san is angry then Ichigo is in real danger of dying. With her soul power so minute, her death would mean instant transferal to Soul Society, losing her memory, and becoming a resident of Rukongai. Flicking the light on he looks up at his reflection staring with wide eyes at the crimson fingerprints on his face. "Ichigo." Kisuke turns on the tap splashing cold water on his face. The blood runs down his face pooling in his hands. Her blood washes away too quickly, too easily.

Wiping his face with a towel he drops it in a nearby hamper and returns to Ichigo's bedside. His deep blue eyes staring intensely at her sickly pale face as he sits in a small chair pulled close to the bed. "I've been thinking a lot lately, Ichigo-san." he whispers, taking her hand and holding her fingers to his face in the same place where the blood was just washed away. "Many things connect people to each other." Looking over to her chest he can see the bandages wrapped around her shoulders where the hollow cut deep into her skin. "Words with promises and passion, or deeds with blood and steel." Fighting the lump in his throat his shoulders tremble slightly. "They have value and fill spaces inside us giving our hearts a sense of wholeness, a connection to each other. That bond is what we call love."

Shutting his eyes, Kisuke slides her cold hand over his cheek. "You fill every space inside me." Lowering his head he listens to the beeping of her heart monitor. He grows silent lost in his own thoughts for a few moments. "But... Ichigo... I haven't done right by you. The pain you going through is my fau-"

"I thought we already talked about this?"

"I-Ichigo?" His eyes grow round in surprise at Ichigo standing next to him. "You left your own body?"

"Yeah, I have no idea how. I just... kinda followed your voice." she tells him scratching at her head. "Kisuke..." Ichigo's voice whispers in a gentle tone. "Is is so hard to be forgiven?"

"It's unbearable." he replies in with a gasp. Rising up from the chair his arms reach for her aching to touch her and hold her close. "How can I just let you make everything so easy?" His hands lift to her smiling face, instead of feeling her soft cheeks they slip right through. "Oh, no."

"Weird." Ichigo instantly tries to punch him only to feel air. "What the hell?" Looking down at her chest she sees the broken chain of fate over where he heart should be. "How... did I get this back? And why can't I touch you?"

"Ichigo..." Urahara's face suddenly looks deathly serious. "I swear... I will fix this."

"I know you will." she replies folding her arms in front of her chest thrilled he made her a promise. She knows he will fix her, and after he does, maybe show her that passion he was talking about. Then he will be able to see that their bond isn't from words or deeds... "It's unbreakable faith in you, Kisuke."


Hey all! I know this chapter is a bit short. But for the next part I needed a break cuz it's gonna be a long one. =) Hope you don't mind. I wanna say thanks to everyone sticking with me through this fic. I really adore this couple. Please drop me a review it means a lot to me^^