Part II: Death Changes Everything

Chapter 9

A/N: Ok, here's the first chapter in Part II. This chapter is somewhat of a transition and needs to cover some of the loose ends, per se. Then, we're on to the meat of the story in the next chapter, which hopefully my muse will get to me sooner than this one. Many apologies from the both of us. Plus, I just found out I'm preggers. I have a disorder that can cause miscarriage so I've been a bit overwhelmed with dr visits and stuff which made the story hit the backburner.

I'm also working on an IchiRuki AVM set to Everything I Do I Do it For You by Bryan Adams. I'm about halfway done. I'll let you know where to find it. :)

Before I go any further, once again thanks to all who have read and/or reviewed thus far. Without your encouragement, this wouldn't have come to be. :)

And now, Part II...

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As Renji stuffed his zanpakutou through the mask one of the last hollow, Inoue was finishing up healing Ishida. Under her barrier, the Quincy sat crosslegged and watched the hollow burst into spirit particles. Inoue was gazing off into the distance towards Las Noches. Probably wondering about Kurosaki. The familiar pangs hit his heart again, and being with her, somewhat isolated from everyone, was just as torturous as the last time. She was right there and yet so far away, just out of reach.

They're all ok, Inoue sighed relieved.

Ishida felt out for everyone's reiatsu to find them all still there, some stronger than others but all still there, and a lack of hollow pressure in the vicinity.

"Kurosaki is well, Inoue-san," Ishida said dryly.

"Oh, I know, Ishida-kun. I was just thinking about Rukia-san, though. Her reiatsu feels a bit weak." She shook her head, "I'm sure she's fine."

Jumping to the wrong conclusion is not something Ishida did often She was worried about Rukia-san? He shrugged it off, knowing full well once they got near Ichigo again, she'd start pinning over him. What does she see in him, anyway?

"How did you get here, Inoue-san?" Ishida asked, putting Ichigo out of his mind.

Inoue looked down at the sand. "I told Abarai-kun to take me back. I know he was trying to protect me, and he said you all would be very upset if something happened to me after all you'd done to rescue me, but I couldn't just sit by. The whole reason I came to Hueco Mundo was to keep all of you safe, and I wasn't going to sit back and let you fight for me anymore when I'm not able to fight for myself."

"You came here to protect us?" He wasn't quite understanding.

As if it were just a matter of course, she replied, "Uh-huh. Ulquiorra caught me running through the Senkaimon and told me he'd kill you all if I didn't go with him. It wasn't a tough choice, you know..."

"But you could've been hurt, Inoue-san." She keeps sacrificing herself. Ishida had to rein in the scream he wanted to unleash at her and formed the thought in his head instead. Inoue, you'll get yourself killed like that!

The serious look she gave surprised him, and she said simply, "I know," like her risking her life was the most natural thing to be doing.

He had to change the subject before he lost control. "Thank you for healing me, Inoue-san."

"You're welcome," she replied, looking like she really wanted to add something. He could see the the conflict in her eyes. When it seemed as if one side won her inner battle, it came out a hesitant whisper, "I killed that snake hollow. It was going to eat your soul."

"You... you killed it, Inoue-san?" Ishida quickly got to his knees, that fear and frustration churning once again. She battled a hollow?

"Of course! It was going to hurt you, Ishida-kun. I couldn't let that happen so I killed it and got to you as fast as I could." She looked directly at him and said quietly, "It hurt you really badly, Ishida-kun."

Oddly, he thought she seemed more frightened of the fact he was injured than of facing a dangerous hollow. Although his heart wanted to rejoice that she cared enough about him to do that, it also wanted to shrink away in fear and self-loathing. His preoccupation with Inoue left the opening for the hollow to hit him in the first place. His stupid emotions got in the way, and that hollow could've killed her while she was trying to help him. He shook his head. To top it off, now she was going to be running headlong into battle for his sake, for all their sakes. Oh, that wouldn't do at all. Ishida decided if she was going to fight, he'd have to never leave her side and yet remain somewhat unattached and unaffected. Finding a way to do that, though, was easier said than done. Ichigo couldn't even do that with Rukia so how in the world was he going to do that for Inoue?

The troubled look he caught in her eyes prompted him to say, "But I'm ok now, thanks to you, Inoue-san," and he motioned to the barrier.

"No problem. I'm sure you'd do the same for me," she told him brightly, none of her former uneasiness evident.

He nodded. The same and more, Inoue. He'd gladly throw down his life for her.

Curving her lips into a smile, she took down her shield, "Ok, all done, Ishida-kun."

Before he could even blink, she turned her shield on her hands. The amber glow lit her face like candlelight, and Ishida had to look away because it was causing him to break into a sweat. Oh, why did this have to be so hard? In no time, to Ishida's relief, her hands were completely healed and the the shield disappeared.

Inoue was unsuccessfully tugging at her bandages with her teeth, letting out soft little grunts of effort. Ishida chuckled in spite of himself: there was something about her that was so disarming sometimes. Before he realized, he was moving toward her, motioning to her hands, "Here, let me help you, Inoue." He shimmied over close to her and undid her bandages slowly. Glad to help her and, now that what he was doing had sunk in completely, unnerved at the same time, he wanted the moment to last forever and for the bandages to hurry up and come off already. He cursed Rukia's expert wrapping job.

"Thank you, Ishida-kun," she smiled warmly at him. Once the last of the gauzy strips fell to the ground, she leapt to her feet and reached a hand out to Ishida.

Pondering whether he should take it or not, Ishida looked at the delicate hand before him and felt his heart explode into his stomach and then bounce up to his throat. She didn't give him any choice in the matter because his hesitation merely caused her to grab his hand herself and yank him up. The Quincy hoped she wouldn't notice that his palm was all clammy. He was off balance so he stumbled until he was close enough to feel her hair brush against him. For that split second, their faces were almost close enough to touch. Oh, God... If this kept up, he'd die young of a heart attack.

"Ok, let's go!" Inoue giggled and pulled him, running over to Renji and Chad, who at this point, were victoriously limping towards them. Ishida didn't even have time to blush; the girl was like a whirlwind.

Chad lifted an eyebrow at Inoue and Ishida approaching hand-in-hand and chuckled under his breath. Well, it's about time.

Inoue saw the state the two men were in and called out, "You two are hurt! Hold on, I'll help!"

Renji fell to one knee, panting hard. He'd taken a pretty nasty hit to the stomach. The bleeding wasn't terribly bad, slowly oozing from his injury. It wasn't bad enough to keep him from his first priority, though, which was regrouping and making sure Rukia, whose reiatsu was dangerously weakened, was all right. "Inoue, wait until we get back to Rukia and Ichigo."

She gave him a dubious look, her eyes moving from his sweat-soaked face to the spotch of wetness widening on this shihakushou, "But, Abarai-kun..."

"I'll be fine. Heal me later." With that, Renji nodded to Ishida and grabbed Chad by the shoulder, disappearing in shunpo. Ishida immediately understood what he was to do. He grabbed Inoue around her waist, and she let out a yelp of surprise. The Quincy flashed toward where they'd left Ichigo and Rukia.

When Inoue's head stopped spinning from being flashed away, she gazed at Ishida, who was concentrating on where he was going. She'd thought about what Ishida said in his fevered semi-consciousness and thought about her feelings, too. She couldn't say she was in love with Ishida, but she certainly cared for him a great deal. While she was healing her own hands, Inoue got the idea to start hanging around Ishida a little, no, a lot more, trying to get to know him better. It felt a little like cheating, though, knowing how he felt for her already, and of course it was easier to try a relationship with someone when you already knew he was in love with you. However, it left that certain someone extremely vulnerable. If she wasn't careful, she could break his heart, the last thing Inoue wanted to do. Inoue was willing to see this through, treading as carefully as she could. It's not every day a guy professes his undying love for you, even if he isn't aware of it.

Renji and Chad arrived just in time to watch Ichigo lay a breathless, blushing, but battered Rukia down gingerly upon Las Noches' cold, hard floor.

"Rukia!" cried Renji, both relieved she was conscious and horrified to see the bloody gashes and bruises she was covered in.

"I'm ok, Renji," Rukia sounded extremely annoyed, but her voice was weak, small. "I don't need you worrying about me or telling me how bad off I am, too. It looks worse than what it is."

Ichigo's eye twitched. "Don't lie, midget. You were within an inch of your life before I showed up." With that, he coughed up blood fitfully and flopped to the ground.

"And you're the perfect picture of health? Don't get too cocky there, fool, while you're bleeding all over the place yourself," Rukia lectured sternly.

"Okay," Inoue spoke up loudly to get their attention, arriving with Ishida just after Renji and Chad. Without hesitation she called on Ayame and Shon'ou forming a healing barrier around the two of them, cutting their bickering off. "You're both injured so just sit quietly while I heal you." Inoue flashed them a serious look followed quickly by goofy grin. She had such a hard time trying to act authoritative.

Whatever biting insult Ichigo and Rukia were about to throw at each other died in their throats as their eyes met under the amber glow of Inoue's barrier. Ichigo searched out Rukia's hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. Their foreheads met with a soft thump and they closed their eyes, an identical curve forming on their lips.

The guys got visibly uncomfortable at this, shifting their eyes away, fidgeting and making nervous noises in their throats. Inoue just gazed at the two, resisting the urge to say, "Aww," because she knew the look she would get from both of them if she did.

Ichigo was happy, and though it still hurt a bit to see him with Rukia, Inoue's own happiness for them had already begun to drown out the regret for herself. I only hope one day I can find a love like that. With that thought, her eyes slid to Ishida, who was pushing his glasses up onto his nose, his cheeks a cute blush pink. Inoue felt her face heat up and quickly looked away. Maybe...

"Now you two," Inoue turned the Shun Shun Rikka on Renji and Chad, who were still standing close enough together while trying to ignore the lovebirds. They took one look at each other, gasped and scrambled as far away from each other as the shield would allow. Chad spoke softly but urgently, "Please hurry, Inoue," while Renji fumed in his corner of the barrier, making himself as small as he could, as the hole in his middle closed up.

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"IIICCCHHIIIGGGOOOOOOOO!" Asano Keigo yelled down the hallway, running at top speed toward the orange-haired boy with his backpack slung over his shoulder like a second thought.

Once Keigo was upon him, Ichigo stuck out his arm, effectively clotheslining his friend. Keigo flipped almost completely over and crashed to the floor, which caused blood to spurt out of his nose and tears to run rivers from his eyes.

"Wah, Ichigo, where did you go? How much work are you going to have to make up? Are you going to fail this year? Wah, what's with those bandages on your head?" Keigo got out in one breath.

Ichigo replied to the only question he felt like answering, and even that was not the truth, "Meh, it's nothing. My sister left one of her plushies out, and I tripped over it."

"All that from tripping over a plushie?! You expect me to believe--mugh!" Keigo doubled over as Ichigo socked him in the stomach.

"Really, Asano, you need to learn to stop questioning him," Kojima Mizuiro said sweetly. "Besides," he whispered, "you already know what happened." The dark-haired boy stepped over Keigo and whistled as he manuevered himself between the three lovely teachers grouped in front of the teachers' lounge.

"I... hate... you... all," was mushed into the ground Keigo's face had implanted itself in.

As he made his way inside the classroom, Ichigo braced himself to see her empty desk, for only a very select few to remember the tiny, exceedingly curious and sometimes sickeningly sweet transfer student. He thought he was prepared for it: he wasn't even close. Every fiber in his being shook with the wrongness of seeing that void. She belonged wherever he was, but instead of being here, Rukia was in Soul Society, helping the post-war effort to mend.

It seemed ages ago and yet felt like it was only yesterday.

Getting out of Hueco Mundo was easier than they'd all believed. Kurotsuchi hadn't found anything in Aporro's lab that would work, although he and Nemu had their hands full with other "treasures" he'd discovered. With a tug on Ichigo's hakama, Nel had appeared with Pesche and Dondochakka, and bawled loudly, tears flowing down her face. She cried that she thought Ichigo was going to die in his fight against Ulquiorra, and Ichigo just hugged her to his leg, thanking her for everything she'd done for him. He didn't tell her that he actually had died for a moment because he knew she would just cry harder. When she got a hold of herself, she heard them all talking about leaving Hueco Mundo, to which she offered to open a Garganta from the inside, saying that all Espada knew how. Kenpachi's head popped up at her mention of rank, but he was quickly let down when a wary Ichigo explained the crack in her mask leaked reiatsu and she wouldn't be at full form until she could control the reiatsu loss.

Then Ichigo did the unthinkable and told Nel and her band of brothers to accompany them back to Karakura, to which Byakuya immediately spoke against, saying Nel and her companions needed to be purified: they were hollow, after all. Ichigo tried to explain, impassioned and furious with Byakuya, that Nel and her crew helped them even though they'd be branded as traitors, and that she'd fought the 5th Espada to save him, losing only because of the crack in her mask. Kenpachi lit up at this, and Yachiru giggled, patting the battle-hungry captain's head. He'd even added Nel, Pesche and Dondochakka only ate the hollows of animals and insects, that she'd be no danger to any plusses. Ignoring Ichigo's pleas and expressionless as always, Byakuya put his hand to Senbonzakura's hilt, to which Unohana laid her hand on his shoulder, effectively staying him. "Kuchiki-taichou," she'd said in her kind, wise voice, "not everything is as black and white as you assume it to be."

Making a Garganta from the Hueco Mundo side was something Aizen had not taken pains to prohibit so his Espada could get through. Nel opened one with relative ease, right onto the battlefield in the fake Karakura.

There they the defeat of Aizen at the hands of the Shinigami, Vaizard and Ichigo himself. Oomeada was lost due to his own cowardice and arrogance, to which Soifon-taichou was slightly saddened but mostly annoyed. Matsumoto and Ikkaku were probably still recuperating from their injuries. Yamamoto-soutaichou sacrificed himself to end Aizen in a proverbial blaze of glory, his zanpakutou incinerating everything in its wake in the final form of his bankai, cursing himself in the end for his own arrogance and lack of wisdom and compassion. He blamed himself for the events that spiraled out of control starting with Aizen's plot over 100 years ago, realizing his own faults had helped the enemy come this far. Shinji came close to losing his life, but in the last moment, it was Unohana that came to his aid in battle and, to the shock of the Shinigami and Vaizard alike, healed his wounds. In a display of her age, wisdom and authority, Unohana declared the Vaizard her allies. No one, not even Kuchiki Byakuya, was obliged to argue with her.

A time was set aside to mourn Yamamoto's passing in Soul Society and to pick up the pieces. A replacement for the soutaichou was not named in the week Ichigo spent there recuperating from the injuries he sustained in that last battle, but he was sure that it was mere formality that delayed Unohana's appointment to Captain-Commander. She was by far the oldest and wisest among them as far as Ichigo was concerned.

So once again, Rukia was in Soul Society, and Ichigo once again felt like a huge part of him was missing. Ichigo understood her need to aid her fellow shinigami in this crucial time, but his heart ached in spite of what his brain told him, reliving their last moments together over and over.

"But, Rukia, there are hundreds of Shinigami. They can handle it without you, and... and...," Ichigo started, pacing around his room in the Kuchiki mansion, the one Rukia had procured by telling her brother all her friends were staying in the mansion and she absolutely would not have it any other way.

"Ichigo, you know I can't just leave when there's so much to be done. Even if Soul Society wasn't in a state of upheaval, Ukitake-taichou isn't at all well after all his exertion, and the squad will need help. If we leave everything up to Sentaro and Kiyone..."

"Ok, I see your point there," Ichigo aquiesced, "things would be very loud and confusing, but just the same...."

Rukia just looked at him from where she sat on his bed. Ichigo knew that he wasn't going to get anywhere and that she was right, of course.

"I am a Shinigami," she said, a fire lighting her eyes, "and being a Shinigami isn't always about fighting hollow. Sometimes it's more mundane and involves paperwork or hard and unexciting work, but it's still as fulfilling. I need you to respect..."

He plopped onto the bed next to her. "Ok, Ok, I respect it, Rukia, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. As a matter of fact, I really hate it, especially since it's keeping you away..."

She laid her head on his shoulder, "I know."

After a moment, he pulled her into him. "Just what I wanted," she sighed into her hair, "a long distance relationship."

Saying nothing, she looked up and planted a soft, heartfelt kiss on his lips. "I promise I'll come to Karakura as soon as I can."

"You know if you don't come back soon enough, I might just have to storm the Seireitei to find you again."

She pulled back, wide-eyed, "You wouldn't..."

Ichigo laughed at her shock, "Well, I would, so you better hurry up and get back here, midget." A swift kick to his shin let him know she didn't think he was all that funny.

A short time later, at the Senkaimon in the Kuchiki grounds, Rukia said her good-byes to Ishida, Chad and Inoue, and once they were left alone, Rukia and Ichigo said theirs.

"Don't do anything too reckless while I'm away," she wasn't kidding.

"Since when am I reckless?" he asked in slight annoyance and mock surprise.

"Since all the time!" The punch landed on his bicep. Then her eyes became warm, caring, concerned, "Please be careful, Ichigo."

"I will," he reassured her, cupping her cheeks in his hands. He kissed her tenderly, and she kissed him back, her hands finding the opening in his shihakusho to caress his chest in the way she knew gave him chills.

He pulled away first, as breathless as each one of their kisses seemed to leave him, but still able so sear into her very soul with his eyes. "Be safe, Rukia,"

A month with no word from Rukia. It was the worst kind of torture. The last time Ichigo left her in Soul Society was nothing compared to the emptiness he felt now that he'd held her in his arms, kissed her soft lips and let his fingers slide through her silken hair. Then there were the little inklings of fear that bubbled up in him whether he let them or not. Rukia was indeed a shinigami, and that did mean fighting hollow, putting her life at risk. Yes, she was a capable and powerful if petite fighter, but she wasn't infallable or indestructible. Her life was as fragile as anyone else's, and she was far away from where he could protect her.

If she wasn't back soon, he might just have to storm Soul Society again.