A/N: Well, this chapter was shorter than others because it needed to end where it did, otherwise I'd have to stop in a spot where it wouldn't flow right. It's named after the song "Ruthless," by Something Corporate.
Disclaimer: I want KT to write Bleach forever…
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Chapter 10: Ruthless
"Where the hell are we going?!" Ichigo yelled ahead of him to Rukia, who was pulling him along by his wrist. They had been running for some time now and the petite shinigami had yet to tell him their destination.
"Just be patient. We're getting closer," Rukia responded, looking down at her phone which was indicating which direction her target was.
While they were running, all she did was replay the conversation she had with her brother earlier that night in the restaurant.
-Flashback-
"Rukia, sit down," he said motioning his hand towards a chair across from him. They were sitting at a table for two, located across the restaurant due to Byakuya's request for a private moment with his sister.
She sat down quietly in the chair, not saying a word.
"Rukia, I need you to know how important it is for you to stay as uninvolved with Kurosaki as possible. The likelihood of him remembering so much in such a short period of time, like you have, is slim to none. I can't have you telling him more and more information that could potentially cause disaster if left in the wrong hands," he said in a tone that said he was not willing to change his mind.
"Byakuya! It's Ichigo. How can you even think he is the 'wrong hands'?" she asked in disbelief.
He tilted his heads down to look at her in a way that said she should already know the reason to this. "You have repeated the same act you did seven years ago. You gave him your powers. You aren't in any trouble for that, but you're lucky he didn't take all of your power this time. Nevertheless, he has it now. It's nothing compared to what he used to have, but it will grow if encouraged. Although that small amount of power can prevent his transformation into a hollow for the time being, he can eventually be overrun by that parasite. That could potentially bring us to our demise if we allow him to be engrossed with our knowledge."
"You've got to be kidding me," she said looking down at the table now. "You can't expect me to just let him continue to not remember. You know I can't do that," she said not taking her eyes off a damp napkin placed under a glass of water on the table.
There was silence for about ten seconds until Byakuya spoke up. "You know you can't be with him, Rukia."
Her eyebrows furrowed from his response and she slowly raised her head to stare him in the eyes. It was a glare that clearly said I've known but chose to ignore it.
"You know it's not possible. Not to mention, it's not allowed," he added.
She held her glare and then moved it away from him to the open restaurant, which was oblivious to everything she was. Her eyes rested on the orange-headed man on stage laughing at something Tatsuki had apparently told him. Her face eased and the smallest suggestion of her lips forming into a smile occurred, until her brother spoke again.
"It's been ordered by the gotei thirteen that if Kurosaki continues to be a participant in our mission, we must take action. If you don't want anything to happen to him, let him be, Rukia."
She turned her head back to him with a shocked face displaced, "Is that a threat?" she asked unbelievingly.
"No. It's simply what will happen if we don't prevent his involvement," he said sternly.
She looked down and started to shake her head back and forth slightly, not understanding why her life would take away the one thing that could make her happy.
"Tonight you have to find out exactly how much he does remember, before we leave for Soul Society tomorrow at sunrise. That's why we're here." He stood up and started to walk away but stopped when he was standing next to Rukia, who was still looking down. He placed his left hand on her left shoulder and didn't turn to face her, but kept his side to her. "I'm sorry," he said softly and walked off.
She sat there for a few more moments. She placed her elbow on top of the table and bent her head down to be able to move her hand through her hair and rub her forehead due to a headache that had emerged. She would have sat there forever had she not been called by Momo, who was standing about fifteen feet away.
"Rukia! We're getting ready to order, come on!" she said starting to walk back to the table.
"I'm coming," Rukia replied in a solemn tone. She wasn't in the mood to even think about food.
-End Flashback-
'I'm sorry brother. I have to do this,' she thought stopping from running.
"Okay." she said letting go of his arm. Ichigo bent down with his hands placed on his knees, trying to catch his breath. "Ichigo," she said flatly, causing him to look up at her with his head, but still remaining in the same position.
As soon as he looked up, she lunged towards him with her palm stretched out in front of her. She was wearing the red glove with a skull and flames on it. The glove that Ichigo had in his drawer…
"Rukia?! What the-" Ichigo started to say, trying to stand up in the process. Once he was standing, he wasn't fast enough to evade her lunge and her hand hit him straight in the forehead. He felt himself fall straight to the ground as Rukia landed next to him.
"Why the hell did you hit me, Ru-" he started, but stopped when he saw his body flop to the ground in front of him. "Holy shit! Am I dead?!" he yelled crawling backwards on the ground, away from his body.
"No, you're not. Get up," Rukia said, ignoring his outburst.
"No, tell me what the hell you just did to me!" he said, definitely freaking out now.
"I never thought I'd have to deal with this damn reaction twice from you. Just follow me," she said, hoping the future event will snap him out of his "amnesia," so she wouldn't have to explain it now.
He started to stand hesitantly. Rukia began to run a little further ahead, until she turned back, "Come on! Hurry up!"
He ran even though he was scared out of his mind. He just got knocked out of his body, for Christ sake!
He saw she was standing still and ran up and stood behind her. "What now?" he asked.
She lifted her arm and pointed with her phone in her hand. "Kill it," she said casually.
Ichigo looked up to see a large monster-like creature. It was about fifteen feet high, had claws, and a mouth that was open showing off its sharp teeth with drool continually falling from its jaw. It hadn't noticed them yet, due to it being too busy wrecking a vacant building from the outside.
Ichigo's eyes widened and his mouth was left ajar. "You've got to be kidding me," he said incredulously. "What the hell is that thing?!" he said raising his voice as his face started to show the horror he felt.
"It's a hollow if you must know. But don't think about what it is now. Just run in there and take care of it!" she said shoving Ichigo into the right direction.
He was close to it now and it had realized his presence. "Oh shit," Ichigo said to himself softly as the hollow began to approach him. Ichigo began to slowly back away from it.
"What are you backing away from?! Kill it already!" Rukia yelled from the sidelines.
"Why don't you kill it? Considering it looks like you're familiar with this kinda thing!" he yelled back defensively.
"This isn't about me. This is about you. You've done this hundreds of times. Come on, remember!" she said hoping with all her heart.
"Hundreds of times? What are you talking about? This is insane!" The hollow finally lunged for him and he quickly dodged it, rolling to the side.
"This thing is gonna kill me!" he yelled breathing heavily from his dodge.
"That's why you're supposed to kill it before it gets the chance," she said crossing her arms over her chest as she continued to watch intently.
The hollow turned and lunged again, causing Ichigo to jump out of the way as the hollow ended up running into a building. "Well, why don't you tell me how to kill it then, if you're not gonna help me?!"
"You don't feel that heavy metal thing strapped on your back?" she said sarcastically.
He looked over his shoulder only to see a cleaver shaped sword that he thought he saw in his dreams last night. He looked back at her, "Well, excuse me for being a little traumatized from this whole experience!"
The hollow then attacked him again, but he quickly side stepped and reached back for the sword on his back. He lifted it up from his back slowly as the ribbon that was wrapped around it seemed to unravel itself, floating in the breeze.
His eyes began to glow light blue and soon after, his entire body was illuminating in the color. The hollow was approaching him again, but slower this time as if planning an attack.
He had his zanpaktou, or what he still believed was a sword, pointed straight up into the air. "I don't know what the hell is happening, but this all of a sudden feels like," he paused, "instinct to me," he stated simply.
The hollow then jumped straight towards him, but Ichigo simply swirled to the left and continued his circle while lowering his arm with Zangetsu in his hand. It seemed like everything was in slow motion to Rukia as she watched him continue to spin around with his zanpaktou now perpendicular to his body and then smoothly slicing through the hollow's torso.
The halves of the hollows body flopped to the ground after a twitch of the left leg, but they soon evaporated into the air.
Ichigo stood in the same position with his arm stretched out with Zangetsu in hand. He was breathing heavily, but not from exhaustion. He was confused how simple that seemed. How within a few seconds he knew exactly what he was doing and could dispose of the fabled creature without a second thought.
"What's going on?" he whispered so softly with calm in his voice. He thought no one would hear, but he was wrong.
"Now do you believe you've done this hundreds of times?" her voice almost sounding like his conscience.
"This- This is all so- so-" he turned his head towards Rukia as he slowly lowered his arm to his side, "ridiculous."
She shook her head with her arms still folded over her chest, "What's ridiculous is the fact that you still are oblivious…" she said drifting off at the end of her sentence.
"What?" he said raising an eyebrow to her comment.
"Damn it Ichigo!" she said raising her voice as she walked up to him. She was losing her patience. She grabbed his shinigami robe and pulled it closer to her to grab his attention. The hand she grabbed him with was the one still wearing the glove.
"I have a question. Where the hell did you get that glove from, and how is it that you were able to knock me out of my body into this, well, I don't really know what I am right now!" he said raising his voice to her level.
Rukia looked at her hand and let go of her grip on his robe, but didn't move her distance away from him. "This is the glove you've had for five years. I used this glove to get you into your shinigami form," she explained sternly.
"My shini-wani what?" he said wrapped in confusion.
Rukia rolled her eyes. "Well, I know it's not all lost up in that head of yours otherwise you wouldn't have been able to pull off that extermination," she said more to herself than to him.
"What's not all lost? God why do I feel so dizzy? This is just way too much to take in at once," he said placing the palm of his hand against a building and leaning into it.
Rukia breathed out a large breath. "I don't know anything else I can do," she said softly to herself. She moved a hand through her hair, "At least you weren't matched up against a hollow like Grand Fisher again. To have faced him that early in your training those many years ago was incredibly risky. I can't imagine you not knowing what you were doing and that level of a hollow attacking you now," she drifting off.
He froze and turned his head slowly towards Rukia, still leaning his weight on his arm, which was against the building. "What did you just say?" he asked as if he had heard something vital.
She raised an eyebrow, "I said thank god you didn't go up against a higher level hollow-"
"No, no, no! The first thing you said!" he said cutting her off.
"At least you weren't up against a hollow like Grand Fisher ag-" she began.
"Grand Fisher," he repeated turning his head back to the ground as he leaned on the wall more. "The bastard… killed my mother…" he said through gritted teeth as his hand clenched into a fist on the wall.
Rukia's eyes widened. "You- remember?" she asked hesitantly.
"I remember fighting him, and how he tried to kill my sisters. But- that's really it," he said with his face scrunched together, forcing himself to dig his brain for anything else.
"That's it?" she asked with hope evident in her voice.
He stood up straight and looked directly at her. "How much am I missing, Rukia?" he asked straight out.
She looked into his amber eyes as she began to feel her heart sink, "Too much," she said breaking eye contact and looking towards the floor. "Let's get you back into your body," she said leading him to his body still lying on the pavement.
Their walk was quiet, with Rukia in front and Ichigo straggling behind. No one wanted to talk about the present situation. Ichigo was too wrapped up in this new dilemma and Rukia was too disappointed from the event that occurred.
'At least he remembered something,' she thought. 'Even if it wasn't me.'
"I'm leaving tomorrow, Ichigo," she said, stopping from walking with her back facing him.
"You're not in the advertising business, are you?" he questioned, already knowing the answer.
She sighed, "No, I'm not," she said turning around to face him.
"Then, what exactly do you do and where are you going?" he asked interested and wanting to know the truth.
"I do, what you did back there," she said pointing into the distance as if she could see the exact spot. "And I'm going back to where I come from."
"Which is?" he pushed for more information.
"You should know this," she said, not giving him the answer no matter what. It was his job to remember. Not hers.
He stared intently at her with his eyebrows furrowed. "You can't leave. What am I supposed to do after all of this?"
She took off and threw the glove at him, which he caught in surprise. "Use this to leave your body. If another hollow shows up- take care of it. Or have Orihime, Chad, Ishida or Tatsuki do it."
"My friends? What do you mean?" he asked even more confused.
"Why don't you ask them? I can't explain anymore," she said turning around to walk off.
"Wait!" he said leaning forward and grabbing her wrist.
She froze. Her mind flashed back to the day she left five years ago. The day he grabbed her wrist in the same way and told her just how much he cared about her, just how much he lov-
"I don't want you to leave," he said softly and tenderly, with his amber eyes shining into her.
Her throat tightened. "You don't have a choice," she said softly as he pulled her into him, in which she didn't decline his actions. "I don't have a choice," she said with his body pressed against hers and they could feel each other's breathing on their skin.
"I know there is so much that you're keeping from me and I know you've been keeping it from me. But even if I should be angry, I can't seem to feel that way towards you. There's something about you- I can't put my finger on it."
Rukia began to open her mouth to speak, but found there were no words to be spoken.
Ichigo continued. "I don't know what it is, but I know I can't let you just leave," he said wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her even closer. "I can't," he repeated softly against her lips.
She closed her eyes as she felt his warm breath against her delicate lips. She couldn't take the rhythm of his breathing any longer. She closed the gap making a forceful, but passionate kiss that Ichigo gladly complied to. His large hands moved from her waist to cup her face, deepening the kiss even more.
Unlike the kiss they shared earlier on the park bench, this kiss dealt more emotions. More importantly, there was need involved. Not just the simple need of each other's touch, or presence, but the need for what was not present: the need for the past; the need for answers and familiarity that seemed to escape every opportunity that made itself present.
Rukia pushed Ichigo away with her hands against his chest, ignoring the emotions that lingered on their lips. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly. And before giving it a second thought, she used her kido, bind, on him. He then lay on the ground on his stomach, not being able to break free.
"I don't want to risk them hurting you, Ichigo," she said her eyes filling with tears. "This time- please, don't come after me," she said turning around. She walked about five feet and then turned her head to look back at him over her shoulder with pain-filled violet eyes. He was staring at her in a look that was begging her to stay, but his mind registered the way she was looking at him.
He had seen that before. More than once, but only by her. Those moments flashed before his eyes. Every moment when she looked at him over her shoulder, whether it was when she was leaving, or coming back to him. He didn't know anything else, except the feeling that he knew her better than he could ever imagine. But by the time he came back to the present, she was gone.
He pushed with all his strength and yelled to help him break free from the restraint, in which it had worked. He stood up and took off after her in the direction he saw her starting to walk in before his mind was taken over by frozen pictures of the past. The sun had already begun to rise.
'I don't know what I was thinking! Byakuya basically told me his life would be in danger if I encouraged it. But I couldn't help it. I didn't want to give up on him. I still don't," she thought closing her eyes as she ran feeling the wind blow her hair off her shoulders, trailing in the air behind her.
'But, if I have to make a choice between risking his memory or his life, then I have to do this. I hope he-' she paused knowing the next words going through her mind would mean she accepted everything coming to her. She breathed in deeply, 'I hope he finds all the happiness he deserves,' she opened her eyes and let one single tear fall down her cheek, 'Goodbye- Ichigo.'
Ichigo was running in a speed he didn't know he was capable of doing. He was running in a direction that he only chose because he had the weirdest feeling that he could actually sense she had been there and was in fact going in that same direction. He called it a gut feeling, but little did he know he could sense her reiatsu.
'Why is it so impossible to understand one thing that's goin' on in my life?!' he thought as the sun was just peeking up over the horizon. What he thought was even more crazy was the fact that it had started to rain. No, more like down pour.
He saw in the distance a group of people standing in front of a door that seemed to lead into nothing, if looked at from the side. As he got closer he realized it was the "advertising group."
He ran as fast as he could and saw that some had stepped into the door, but didn't come out the other side. He was about twenty feet away when he saw Rukia step up to it, hesitate, but continue through as well. "Shit!" he yelled.
Renji was the last to go through and was about to step in as he felt his arm being yanked back, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards. The gate closed.
"What the-" Renji was able to get out of his mouth as Ichigo held him to the ground on his back by grabbing his shirt on his chest.
"Where the hell did that door lead to and how do I get there?" Ichigo asked in a rough voice as the rain fell on his face and he shook his head to fling the water off.
"The gate?" Renji said irritated.
"Don't get fucking technical with me, Eyebrows. Answer me!" Ichigo yelled, pushing him into the ground even more.
"Get your hands off me, Kurosaki," Renji stated blandly, not even resisting.
"Damn it! Just tell me!" Ichigo yelled even louder.
The red-headed man looked him straight in the eyes. "They're going to Soul Society, Ichigo. And you can't go there."
"Why the fuck not?!"
"She left because she's trying to protect you, you dumb ass!"
"Protect me from what?!"
Renji calmed suddenly, "From the same thing she protected you from the first time she left."
Ichigo suddenly let go of his shirt, stood up and stepped back a step. Renji could tell a revelation was occurring within the man in front of him.
"Renji- she's not- in any danger because of me this time, right?" Ichigo asked hesitantly.
Renji looked away into the far distance. "She doesn't know that she is yet."
This is the only lonely picture
Waiting on my floor
Littering my shore
This is the last true burning letter
Given to a girl
Written by a boy
Living in a world created to destroy
But if I built you a city,
Would you let me?
Would you tear it down?
But there you go for the last time
I finally know now what I should have known then
That I could still be ruthless if you let me
But there you go and I'm not done
You're waving goodbye, well at least you're having fun
The rising tide will not let you forget me
forget me
This is your ghost that kneels before me
Razors on her tongue, a body full of oxygen
It wont be the last time she'll ignore me
The thinning of my skin, without the strength to go
The winter's setting in, to cover you in snow
But if I built you a city,
Would you let me?
Would you tear it down?
But there you go for the last time
I finally know now what I should have known then
That I could still be ruthless if you let me
But there you go and I'm not done
You're waving goodbye, well at least you're having fun
The rising tide will not let you forget me
Forget me
Forget me
Forget me, yeah
I'll raise towers and climb them
Rivers and walk them
Oceans to drown in
You won't make a sound in
But there you go for the last time
I finally know now what I should have known then
That I could still be ruthless if you'll let me
But there you go and I'm not done
You're waving goodbye, well at least you're having fun
The rising tide will not let you forget me
...forget me
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So, that was chapter ten! I hit double digits in chapters! I don't know about you, but that's exciting for me. I had trouble uploading this chapter because whenever I did, the site like cut out parts and it pissed me off. Anyways, don't hesitate to leave me a comment and tell me what you think. Later