Chapter 25 – Water

Despite everything he and Rukia had been through, both before meeting the Underworld and after, nothing felt quite as surreal as this, this moment in time.

He could still feel her lips, slightly moist with anticipation and soft, softer than he'd ever imagined. And yes, he had to admit to himself that he had imagined what her lips were like. But following that for him kiss was a period of…strangeness.

Part of him was elated at the sudden, intimate gesture, at the chance to be Rukia's other half. And another part of him was a little alarmed, a little taken aback at how forward she'd been.

He knew what he'd meant to say, and what it could entail for the future of their friendship, but he certainly hadn't expected her to attack him the way she had. Not that he'd disliked it or anything, just…what was he to do now?

He'd been as straightforward as he could, just to tell Rukia that he didn't know where they stood. She'd responded by kissing him. Sure, he'd kissed her back, but she'd scrambled his circuits with that kiss; if he could do it over, he might not have followed the same route. It was a little too quick for him.

But they'd both enjoyed it, he knew that for sure. Silas's awkward exit from the scene had triggered a kind of joy he'd not experienced for a long while, not since they'd successfully ripped Rukia from the clutches of execution. And she had too, damn it. A soft peal of laughter he'd never heard from her before, complemented by that fantastic twinkle in her dark eyes.

Forwards or backwards? He felt somewhat stuck, immobilized by what he saw as unfair choices. He definitely thought it'd be better to move forward, but he wasn't sure he was ready for that. And he knew if they moved backward, back to just being friends…There was no telling if their relationship would be the same as it was before.

He returned to the medical bay, where almost half of their remaining contingent resided, lying on bloody cots in various states of injury. It seemed Silas had managed to get the outpost's translocator up and running, as medical personnel he didn't recognize ran to and fro, tending to the wounded. Amongst the injured he saw Sarah, breathing heavily but conscious at last, Silas, trying his very hardest to deflect medical attention to 'those who needed it more,' and the girl Rukia had saved from Mathis. Michelle, as she'd called her.

She looked a little out of place, huddled against a wall, her bright green eyes full of apprehension. A medic was checking her for injury, trying to determine the severity of her injuries.

Their eyes met, and he smiled at her reassuringly as he waved. She meekly waved back, the corners of her lips turned up slightly.

As the technician finished his check-up and left to tend to another, Ichigo made his way over to the girl.

"Hey," he said softly. "Michelle, right?"

She nodded her head. "Who're you?"

"I'm Kurosaki Ichigo," he said, slowly enough for Michelle to keep up with the foreign syllables.

"Kurosaki…?" Michelle sounded the name out slowly. He nodded in affirmation. He set Zangetsu down at his feet, noting the slight flinch that rippled through Michelle at the light clink the weapon made upon hitting the floor.

"Thought I'd try and get to know you a little," Ichigo said in as friendly a tone he could manage. Mentally, he thanked his lucky stars he'd actually paid a little attention in English.

Michelle offered a small smile. "I'm Michelle. Well, guess you know that already." She paused for a moment, and then quietly followed up with, "I seem to have lost my memory."

Ichigo raised his eyebrows. "Amnesia?" he asked sympathetically. He'd heard his father talk about it in the past, and it had always struck him as a lonely affliction. "Is there anything you can remember?"

She shook her head sadly. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them closer.

"Can you tell me more about this place? These people? I don't understand what's going on…" she asked.

"I'll try, but I don't all that much about them," he said. "Rukia and I are kind of…outsiders."

At the mention of Rukia's name, Michelle brightened considerably. "Then can you tell me more about yourselves?"

Ichigo laughed, encouraged by her enthusiasm. "Sure. I'll give it a try."


Rukia ran her fingers over her lips for the fifteenth time in so many minutes, and chastised herself again as she forcibly pulled her hand away to her side.

She'd kissed him. He'd kissed her back.

Well, then.

There couldn't be a clearer way to convey interest than that.

Right?

Had she been a little too hasty? In hindsight, she'd pigeon-holed him into having only a single favorable response. His vigor in giving it was duly noted, but even so. Part of her felt a little dirty, like she'd forced him to kiss her back.

She'd have to talk to him about it later. Let him actually finish what he was saying.

But she had something else to do. Something she needed to clear up, an itch that demanded to be scratched. She wrapped a large blanket around her shoulders and trudged outside. "Hey," she said quietly, not knowing what else to say.

He stood perfectly still, despite the harsh cold nipping at them both with tongues of icy wind.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice as frigid as the winter bite.

"Answers," Rukia responded, undeterred.

A moment of silence.

Then:

"I suppose I owe you that much."

"Yeah, you do."

He turned his eye on her, scowl more pronounced than usual. But she noticed a strange dimness in his gaze. Sharp, but less of a glint than before. "Ask," he commanded simply, before turning to watch the swaying of the distant trees.

She strode up next to him and joined him in his vigil. A few moments passed as she mulled over how to ask what she wanted to.

"What are you?"

"Human."

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

"Then what are you asking, I wonder?"

Rukia snapped, "Are you intentionally avoiding the question?"

No answer. She glanced over at him and noticed that dimness in his eye again. The stark contrast between the real Mathis now and Lust's smiling caricature of him was even more pronounced thanks to that blank stare.

"I was human," he said slowly. "And then I became…something else. You've seen what happened."

"Envy thought you were Wrath," Rukia said. "So that shadow you made the contract with…"

Mathis nodded once.

Rukia's mind raced. This wasn't all that surprising, as Rukia had reached her own conclusions earlier, but it was jarring to receive Mathis's admission. He played host to Wrath, it seemed. Then—.

"…Are you Wrath?" she whispered, suddenly terrified by the notion of speaking to that black miasma personified.

He shook his head, allowing Rukia to release the breath she'd been unconsciously holding. Mathis noticed, and scoffed. "If I were Wrath, I would have responded to Envy when she called me by that name, would I not?"

"I suppose," Rukia ceded. Then she realized what he'd just said. "Wait. You remember that?"

Mathis turned his frown on her, examining her as if she'd just sprouted a second head. "Why would I not?"

"Because it wasn't you?" she said, almost hopefully. "You're not some mindless monster, you're exact and precise to fault. You're one of the good guys." He caught onto her tone, the unspoken question and almost-hope hiding beneath the surface of her words, and his eye darkened further. She detected something else in his expression. Sadness? Pity? His usual outward lack of emotions made this one difficult to place.

'Would he give you your truth? Or would he upend it?'

An eternity passed before he spoke:

"Would you like to think that of me?"

She heard the answer in the question and felt her heart sink. The words she'd given to Michelle, the false truth she'd hopefully given to Lust, crumbled. The fear came back full-sail, and she had to resist every instinct screaming in her head to take a step back from him.

"Are you friend? Or foe?" Rukia asked, a little tense.

"Judge for yourself, Kuchiki." Mathis answered, the customary steel back in his expression and voice.

Rukia remembered then Lust's words to her regarding truth. "Truth isn't the truth until it's given by the person to whom it belongs," she recited as best as she could.

Mathis scoffed. "You have met with Lust, then?"

"Yes."

Mathis stood silently for a couple minutes. Rukia was about to break the silence, when—.

"I am not your foe."

Rukia noted the peculiar wording, and pressed a little further. "So a friend. An ally," she modified hastily at a pointed glance from Mathis.

Instead of answering, however, Mathis replied with: "Do you think me a good man, Kuchiki?"

Slightly taken aback by the query, Rukia quickly answered, "Yes."

"Why?"

"You lead this contingent of the Underworld against the demons. And the Underworld protects humanity. So that makes you one of the good guys," Rukia said warily.

"How incredibly naïve. How then, do you think of water?"

Rukia blinked. "What?"

"Water. H2O. What do you make of that? Do you think it good because humans need it to survive? After all, it sustains them and buffers this world from dramatic change. It keeps us cool, it offers entertainment, allows us another mode of transportation, and the list only grows longer."

"I would say it's good then," she replied.

"Then all the people who have died because of water? Because water came together as a massive tsunami and wiped away cities like sand castles against the tide. Water has reached to the skies and formed hurricanes, typhoons, all manner of storm systems, leaving countless humans dead in their wake. How many people have drowned, do you think? How many have frozen to death in snow or ice? Even something as simple as the roads becoming slick with precipitation is due to water. And many have died because of that as well."

When Rukia said nothing, Mathis asked, "Why do you not say then that water is evil?"

"Because it's a force of nature," she said. "It doesn't look to kill, it just so happens that sometimes it's coming through and some humans are in the way."

Mathis's point hit her like a bag of bricks. "Are you saying you're a force of nature?"

Mathis scoffed, and Rukia absentmindedly noted that that was probably the closest to laughing she'd ever hear from him. "Imagine all that power. All that power to sustain, to protect, to do so many things. All the power to destroy, kill, maim. Imagine that neutral power, that which you call a force of nature, and imagine it is given to a child. A little boy, not yet matured, not yet come into his own. Ruled by his emotions, by his petulance. His hate."

Mathis was silent for a moment, lost for a moment in contemplation. Then: "See how easily that force of nature becomes instead a force of destruction."

"I am not a protector, I am a destroyer. I am the embodiment of revenge, and nothing good was ever born of such negativity. And I alone am responsible for what I have become. In my arrogance and childish rage, I chose to become evil. A necessary evil for the Underworld, but an evil nonetheless."

"But you care for your sister, don't you?" Rukia asked. "It was Sarah you were trying to avenge, trying to protect."

"Who would not kill for the ones they care about?" Mathis shot back. His tone had suddenly turned ice-cold and harsh. "If you think the paragons of evil and injustice of this world have never loved their family, never cared for their friends, then you are more of a fool than I expected. I do fight to protect her, naturally. She is all I have left of my family. If you wish to consider a man good in that regard, look for the one who protects the people he hates or does not know. Not for the man who only protects the ones that are important to him."

The two of them lapsed into silence for the umpteenth time in so many minutes.

"Do the others know?" Rukia asked softly.

"Not everything. But yes."

"Yet they still choose to fight with you. You don't think that amounts to anything?"

"They fight with me simply because I fight the same enemy they do, just with greater effectiveness. But they are wary of me. As they should be."

Rukia shook her head. "Silas was fighting to wake you up. He practically tore his hands apart trying—."

"—to kill me," Mathis cut in, finishing her sentence.

Rukia froze. Her silence prompted Mathis to cast a disdainful look towards her. "Did you believe he was being honorable? Trying to save his comrade?"

She moved her lips, but no words came out. His own lieutenant had tried to kill him?

"Silas may not bear me any ill will, but he and the other higher-ranking officers of the Underworld know what to do should I be misled by an entity such as the Dreamseeker. In such a situation the highest priority task is to classify me as an enemy and proceed with termination."

"Then why did he tell me to break your mask?"

"Because he knew you would not be able to kill me."

Rukia hated the idea of a comrade being ordered to kill his fellow soldier, but Mathis's words made sense; no effort had been made to recover Mathis, and from the moment she'd made mention of the Dreamseeker, Silas had been in a hurry to get as far away from Mathis as humanly possible.

"I think I have entertained enough conversation," Mathis said shortly, before disappearing with a crackle.

Rukia sighed. The joy she'd felt from her encounter with Ichigo was slightly blunted, and she just felt so tired. Mathis may not have confessed to being an enemy, but he was definitely becoming less and less like an ally.

Because he knew you would not be able to kill me. She'd caught the hidden meaning there. And Rukia wasn't quite sure she could argue with them. Especially after that kiss.

She hoped it would never come down to that.