TW: Character Death
As far as she was concerned, The Almighty Job had halved her life into two separate, unequal parts: the "before" and the "after."
In the "before" of things, she had been called a certain name. And that certain name had meant that she was a part of a certain group. And that had had meaning, even though within the group itself—The Los Animales—she hadn't been the best or the strongest among them. She had simply been who she was.
And then The Almighty Job happened.
And now, two years "after" that job, she was no longer that certain name or a Los Animales. She was no longer a thing that didn't truly exist.
She was a survivor.
More than that: she was ordinary—happily so.
The blood spilled that day been washed away.
The fire had turned everything to ashes.
Lingering feelings had been sealed with a wedding ring and a new name. A newer name.
"Before" and "after" were never supposed to meet. That's what she had told herself: they were separate—she was separate.
And yet, here he was in her home and sitting on her couch with his wakizashi in hand.
And here she was, in her home with a gun pointed straight at him.
His hair was still fiery colored. His eyes were still that honey-brown color. But there were new things that made up the symphony of his face: the crescent moon-shaped scar on his brow bone, the right side; the three healed cuts at the corner of his upper lip. The heated, hateful look in his eyes.
He took a moment to scrutinize her home and cross-examine her. He seemed to note a hundred little details before settling on the ring she wore and the finger she wore it on. "Red."
"Fifteen."
"Is it too late to congratulate you?" He gestured toward her wedding photo. The photo hung on the wall in black and white, the one of her and her husband smiling on their wedding day. Her husband, with his arms clasped around her waist, was so the opposite of Fifteen and all his color: fairer-skinned with square-framed spectacles and aristocratic slopes and planes to his face.
"No, it's not," she whispered.
"Then, congratulations."
His eyes still lingered at the photo.
What was he looking at? What was he seeing? Was he…seeing her?
Stupid.
Stupid of her to want that now in the "after."
She knew better, had learned it the hard way: Fifteen had never really seen her. Not really.
"Please tell me why are you here."
He turned to face her. "Why I'm here or how am I here?" His voice carried an edge now, "Or do you want to know how I found you after you started calling yourself—"
"Don't." What she had meant sound forceful and forward warbled. Her finger moved to the safety; the click was a heavy punctuation. "Don't."
She had known. She had known that even after hiding, even after taking on the first name she found, she could have been found. But she had just hoped that she hadn't been worth the effort to anybody looking for her.
Fifteen scoffed like he had known what she was thinking. In the "before," Fifteen had been the rebel within their rebellious group, the one who never did more than what was asked or gave anyone more than a flat stare or an air of indifference. He had been there for The Almighty Job, just like her and everyone else.
That's what she told herself, but she knew that there had been an exception.
She almost wanted to ask. Because maybe if he was here, maybe despite what had been done that day, maybe she was somehow here in the "after," too.
Deadly little Tsukino-chan. With her dark hair and dark eyes and white knives.
"I don't know where La Polilla could be," she said now.
It was the way his eyes seemed to change that made her nervous. "You think I'm here to find La Polilla."
"Why else would you be here?"
"You're the only other one that's left," he stood, "so I'm here to ask a question."
"A question?"
"About that day. In the warehouse. You stood away from everyone else that day. Q sat where he sat and Monroe sat where she had sat. But you were right at the door. Why was that?"
"W-why I did I stand at the door?"
"Tsk-tsk-tsk," La Polilla said, his glance and gun switching back and forth and back between Tsukino and Fifteen. "So jumpy, and I've only asked a simple question."
"We agreed," Tsukino said evenly, and from where Red stood, she could imagine the calm way Tsukino watched the barrel pendulum swing to and away from her, "no questions; nothing personal."
"And are you trying to tell me that you, you and Fifteen, never broke that rule?"
"If we did break that rule, why does it matter if we did?"
La Polilla's gun stilled.
A beat.
Two.
"Alright, then: a new question to the group. Tell me: if you had to guess amongst yourselves, who do you think is the strongest and the weakest? The most valuable, and the least?" His gun lingered on Tsukino.
Her gun lowered. His question, the one he didn't ask but that she knew he was asking, took the fire out of her. "No. No."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I didn't know."
Red's ears were still ringing, but she knew that what had happened to Tsukino was far, far worse. She could only imagine the look on the other woman's face: her wide, pretty eyes like twin moons; her mouth slightly agape.
What she did know was her shaking hands moved towards her stomach. Already there was so much blood.
Tsukino fell back.
"RUKIA!"
The world stopped as Fifteen fell beside her and scooped her body up. "NononononoRukia nonono. Stay with me."
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Que yelled and made a move towards La Polilla.
"Rukia, stay with me!"
La Polilla didn't hesitate. He aimed for Que.
She should've ran before La Polilla shot Monroe. Or braver yet—fired on La Polilla the moment his back turned to her.
But she hadn't. And La Polilla walked over to Fifteen.
Fifteen who was unarmed and cradling Tsukino's body, and calling her by that name.
"When we all came down for that little meeting he called...she and I came down, and then he did and then you. He had said he'd wait a little bit for you. And when you came in, you stood at the door.
"I just want to know why."
"It was just a coincidence. I didn't know that he was going to do it!" She insisted as if he had accused her a hundred times.
"…Before it happened, when Tsukino and I had been on the roof. She saw you."
"She saw me?"
"She had been worried that you had heard us. I told her that it hadn't mattered, that there was nothing La Polilla could do: the job was over and we could do whatever we wanted. We went down to where everyone was supposed to be, but he hadn't been there and neither were you. But then you were both there, one after the other."
Fifteen rose. "Did he know what you knew? Did you tell him…?" Another step.
She hadn't known her tears had fallen until she had tasted salt on her lips. "No."
Her finger moved towards the trigger. Tapped it but hesitated.
It was all he needed. He sidestepped her gun and crouched. She felt the impact of his foot on her calf and her center of gravity tilted; she felt herself falling.
The gun fell out of her hand and to the floor. It clattered as Fifteen kicked it away.
"Don't fucking pretend that you forgot everything!"
"I never said I didn't remember! I didn't forget anything!"
"Why did you follow us up there?!" There came the feeling of his sword against her neck. His voice was thick with tears. "Why did you have to follow us?"
"I was looking for you!" The words burst out. "I was following you! I was going to tell you that, that, that I was in love with you!" She fell to the floor, defeated. She covered her eyes with the crook of her elbow to hide her tears. "Even though I saw the way you looked at Tsukino, and everyone saw it, too. Even though I knew you were in love with her.
…And there they were on the warehouse roof: deadly little Tsukino-chan and Fifteen, talking…
"I hid so you wouldn't see me…but then I heard you ask her to go with you. I snuck away. I hid I didn't know that I had taken so long and I didn't know he would do that her! I'm sorry!
"I'm so, so sorry."
She heard him shift away from her, his breathing deep and heavy.
She looked up at him, expecting spite and hatefulness.
But the look in his eyes was just broken.
Lifetime 321, a lifetime in which Orihime is hated by Ichigo.