Omiai Kekkon

I tried to draw a picture of Ichigo and Rukia once, it ended up being just two big blobs one orange one purple
it's safe to say that I don't own Bleach.

Chapter 8:

"You want to cut your hair?" Akira asked.

"Yes! I've been thinking about it for a while" Rukia said. "I just never had the …guts to do it."

"Why would you need guts to get a haircut. Don't tell me you're one of those girls who cry when anyone brings scissors anywhere near their heads."

Rukia shook her head. "No it's not like that. I thought about cutting my hair when I was still a student at the academy, but then I was adopted into the Kuchiki family. They said they adopted me because I looked so much like Hisana. It's silly but I didn't want to cut my hair because I didn't want Byakuya to be upset that I didn't look like her anymore. Recently I found out that it was no coincidence that I look like Hisana, she was my older sister."

"Really? It explains why Byakuya took you in, but why'd he keep it a secret?"

"Very few people actually know the truth. Byakuya told me Hisana and I died together in the living world and we came into Inuzuri together. It was a hard place for kids to grow up and I was still a baby. We ended up getting separated. She spent nearly every day looking for me, even when she moved to Seireitei and married Byakuya. She died before I could meet her though. She asked Byakuya to look for me and raise me as his sister since she never got the chance to be a real sister to me."

Akira hugged Rukia tight, "I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to meet her."

"Me too" Rukia replied.

She stood in his arms, trying not to cry. For some reason every time she thought of Hisana recently it made her want to cry. Maybe it was because she now knew the truth that she could mourn the loss of the sister she never knew she had.

"Have you noticed how everyone in the Yukimura clan has brown hair except me?" Akira asked.

"Yes. I thought it was odd since most nobles have black hair that everyone else in your family has brown hair."

Akira chuckled humorlessly. "I got my hair color from my mom. My real mom isn't Keiko. My father is known for being a unfaithful husband. My mother was a maid she helped with washing clothes and cooking mostly. She died giving birth to me. Father was all for tossing me out onto the streets but Keiko took me in and raised me as her own. I think it was the only time she's ever defied my father. Not many women are willing to raise their husband's bastard child."

Rukia remembered the comment Saito made at their Omiai. He said he taught Akira from an early age not to have any bastard children. That was so mean and unfair of him.

"Your father is an ass" Rukia muttered.

Akira laughed. "I think so too."

"Do you trust me?" Akira asked a few minutes later.

"Yes."

"Would you trust me if I had a pair of scissors and told you I could cut your hair for you?"

Rukia pretended like she had to think about it. "No" she shook her head vigorously.

"Come on, I won't make you look bad I promise."

"If you mess up my hair I get to cut yours" she said.

"Okay, let's hunt up a pair of scissors and a mirror."

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Rina Kirihara looked around in confusion. Where was she? She didn't recognize the room at all and a feeling of panic and dread filled her.

"Oh, you're awake" a tall girl with short silver hair said approaching her. "How are you feeling?"

Rina tried to speak but her throat was so thick.

"Your throat hurts? I'll get you a cup of water."

The silver haired girl walked away.

Rina looked at her surroundings. It seemed like she was in a hospital. She had no idea how she got there. The last thing she remembered was walking through the streets looking for a place to stay when two men came out of nowhere and began attacking her. She shivered at the memory.

Isane came back with a tall glass of water. She handed it to Rina who took small sips.

"You're probably confused right now. Your head was quite banged up last night. My name is Isane. You're currently in division 4's relief station. Do you know who you are?"

"My name is Rina, I think. Kirihara Rina. How did I get here? Did you save me?" the water cleared her throat a bit but she still wasn't feeling well enough to sit up.

"Renji bought you in. You lost a lot of blood and passed out and he carried you all the way here. He's been coming in every few hours to check up on you so he'll probably be back soon."

Rina didn't know who Renji was but she was thankful that he saved her.

"What's going to happen now?" she asked.

"For now you're going to continue to rest up" Isane said.

Rina wanted to know what was going to happen to her once she got better but she had a feeling Isasne didn't know either. She took a couple more sips of water and drifted off to sleep.

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Rukia looked at herself in the mirror. Akira cut her hair so it just reached her neck. She kind of liked it. When she turned her head her hair sort of swished. It was kind of cool looking so she kept doing it.

Akira had been watching his new wife for the past twenty minutes with a smirk on his face. Getting up he took the mirror from her.

"Oi!" Rukia protested.

"Are you going to sit there all day looking at yourself in the mirror?" he asked leering over her.

"Well, I do have the whole week off" Rukia teased. "I can't think of anything else to do."

"I can think of plenty of other things to do" Akira said as he leaned down to kiss her.

They kissed until Rukia's stomach rumbled.

Akira looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"I forgot to eat yesterday" she muttered.

"You forgot to eat?"

"My stomach was so bubbly I knew if I ate something I'd probably throw up and I didn't want to throw up in front of all of those people."

Akira laughed at her mini rant. "Let's go see if the kitchen is stocked. Do you know how to cook?"

"No."

"Me, either. Let's hope the house is staffed with a cook."

The house wasn't staffed with a cook. Currently there were only 4 servants. Two house cleaners, although for a house that big they would probably need more, a gardener, and Mai who stayed on as Rukia's handmaiden.

The two fumbled around in the kitchen, doing more harm than good. They had a little competition on seeing who could make the better meal given that neither of them had any cooking experiences.

"What is that?"Rukia asked laughing.

"Onigiri" Akira replied.

"Did you burn it?"

"No! It looks like you're burning whatever you're making."

"Eh?" Rukia took her curry off the fire. "We're both hopeless."

"We're not entirely hopeless" Akira said throwing out the burnt curry and onigiri. "We can still go out to eat."

"Sounds like a plan" Rukia said.

A hell butterfly flew in through an open window and landed on Rukia's shoulder. She listened to the message intently.

"So much for a week off" Akira said.

"Mandatory captain and lieutenant meeting. Looks like we're going to have to rain check that meal."

"Do you need help putting on your shinigami robes?"

Rukia rolled her eyes.

"If you'd try to help I'd end up being late" Rukia said. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "It shouldn't take no more than an hour."

Rukia changed into her shinigami robes, slipped her lieutenant's badge on her arm and added the glove Byakuya gave her as congratulations for making lieutenant.

When Rukia got to the first division the first person she saw was Rangiku.

"Oh, you actually came. I thought you'd still be in bed right now" Rangiku said with a wink.

Rukia blushed. "Of course, I got summoned so I'm here. You're eyes are still all droopy, how many drinks did you have list night?"

Rangiku shrugged. "Who cares how many drinks you have as long as they're all free?"

The girls entered the barracks. They weren't the last to show. Kenpachi and Yachiru were missing as well as both Kurotsuchis.

"Rukia, you cut your hair" Byakuya commented.

"Yeah, I figured it was time for a change" she said.

Before he could reply Captain Commander entered the room and all idle chatter stopped. Rukia took her place by Ukitake.

"As some of you already know the original substitute shinigami is back. He's currently in District 3600, which we all know is the Jureichi (Heavy spirit ground). It appears that he's gathering a bunch of humans with spiritual power, including Kurosaki Ichigo, and their plan may be to attack soul society."

"That's impossible!" Rukia spoke up, "I know Ichigo, he would never side with our enemies!"

"You speak out of turn Yukimura-fukutaichou!"

That was the first time Rukia was called by her new last name. She wasn't expecting it.

"As I was saying" Captain Commander continued, "I will be sending someone from the 13th division to check on this matter. In the mean time I'll keep the rest of you informed. You're all dismissed."

Before Rukia could even ask Ukitake countered her request. "No!"

"What do you mean no? I know Ichigo—"

"That's exactly why I can't send you. We'll have to send someone unbiased."

"I can be unbiased. Really I can" Rukia added as he snorted.

"Aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon?"

"What the hell is a honeymoon?"

Ukitake raised an eyebrow.

"I mean heck, what the heck is a honeymoon?"

"It's a vacation for newlyweds. You just got married yesterday. Enjoy your time off." Still seeing that she wanted to protest Ukitake added "Besides Kurosaki knows your reiatsu. If he's recovered his powers he'll be able to sense you as soon as you enter Karakura town."

Rukia stuck out her tongue at him causing him to laugh.

It was good to see her being goofy, Ukitake hadn't seen her behave this way since Kaien died.

"I'll keep you updated."

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"Hey" Rukia said to Renji.

"Hey" he replied back.

"I…" she trailed off. There was no point in asking him why he didn't show up yesterday. She shouldn't have expected him to be there.

As if he knew where her thoughts were at Renji responded "I was in Inuzuri."

"Oh." Rukia hadn't been back since she left. Move forward without looking back, that was the plan. She felt guilty that she hadn't gone back to visit her friends' grave.

"Don't feel guilty" Renji said. "We've both been busy."

They walked together in silence for a moment.

"Isn't the sixth division that way?" Rukia pointed to the left.

"I'm headed to the fourth."

"Are you injured?"

"No, just visiting."

"Oh, well, I guess I'll see you?"

"Yeah, of course."

Rukia made a right and ventured on to her house while Renji kept going straight. He wondered if the woman he rescued had awakened yet. He should've asked Isane after the meeting but she took off too fast. Besides he had wanted to hang back and see how Rukia was doing.

Renji soon found himself walking into the 4th Division's relief station. He walked passed all the random people working and went straight into the recovery room.

Rina was awake. She was sitting up drinking a cup of water.

"Hello. Crap, sorry I didn't mean to scare you" Renji said when she jumped.

Rina began to back away on her cot. "Are you one of the healers?" Rina asked.

"No, my name is Renji, I'm the guy who found you" he said.

"Oh" was all she could say. Suddenly the events of last night flashed through her mind. Her eyes began to water. She couldn't believe this was happening to her. She couldn't believe anything that happened in the past week. One day she came home from school to see her father standing over her bloodied up neighbor. Not knowing what to do Rina ran but her father caught up to her. It was painful. He killed her slowly and tortuously. She was so scared when her spirit left her body. She watched in horror as her father dragged her body into a trash can and dumped her inside. She stayed near the trash can for days hoping someone would find her. Then one day a weird guy in black robes and a sword came by and poked her in the forehead.

Rina woke up hours later in a strange city with a lot of strange people. It was like she was taken back in time, there was no electricity, no cars not jeans, basically nothing modern. Most of the people weren't friendly. No one would give her a place to stay. Heck it took her two days to find out that she was in Soul Society and that everyone there was dead. Hungry with nothing to eat and no place to sleep she tried to look for work but most people bushed her off, and then…and then those two guys came out of nowhere.

" Please don't cry" Renji said. "I'm no good with tears. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I—I…"

As Rina began to sob uncontrollably Renji hunted up some tissue.

"Here take these."

He didn't know why he stayed. He supposed because he was the one who rescued her and he wanted to make sure that she recovered.

After ten minutes the crying stopped.

"Rina-chan, good you're awake I was just coming in to check on you" Isane said as she entered the room. "Oh, you're here too Renji."

"Yeah, I just thought I'd see for myself if she's all better" Renji muttered.

Isane looked over Rina's charts. "Well it looks like you're all set to go back."

"Back? I have to go back to that place?" Rina asked. "Can't I stay here?"

Isane and Renji exchanged a glance.

"This is a relief station, we can't have people living here in case there is an emergency and a lot of people get injured. We have to discharge our patients when they get healthy" Isane explained gently.

Rina didn't know what she was going to do. She didn't know where she could go. She didn't want to go back to the place she was at before. It was obviously dangerous and she couldn't count on someone saving her a second time.

"The academy starts soon" Renji spoke up. "If you take the test and pass they'll give you food and lodgings."

"The academy? What's that?"

Renji frowned everyone knew what the academy was. He figured she must have been really new.

"It's a place where you go and they teach you how to become shinigami."

"Shinigami? Shinigami don't exist" Rina said.

"Of course they do!" Renji said. "I'm a shinigami and so is Isane. I bought you to the part of Soul Society where the shinigamis live."

"Oh, is it safe?"

"Of course it's safe." Renji replied. Well for the most part, as long as no one was attacking it could get so safe it's boring. "If you go to school to become a shinigami you can become a healer or a protector, but most of all you'd be able to defend yourself."

It was as if he knew exactly what to say. Rina never wanted to go through what she went through last night again. If she learned how to protect herself, she'd never be that vulnerable again. But then again, how did she know she could trust him. Men proved themselves to be untrustworthy time and time again.

Almost as if Isane knew her thoughts she said, "Well, we are pretty empty right now, you can stay at least until you figure out if you want to go to the academy or not."

Rina nodded. "Thank you. Both of you, for saving me and healing me."

"We're shinigami, it's what we do" Renji said. He knew that wasn't completely true but he wondered if he could change that.


I know I said I wasn't going to introduce a bunch of OC characters, but I sort of got this idea for a Renji spinoff, hence why Rina has entered the story. Whether actually I do a spinoff or not, it won't be until after I finish this story.