Disclaimer: Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo.
A/N: I still can't make sense of the Bleach ending till now. But thank you so much for reading my story guys! I can see old and new people and I am very happy to see all of you again! Enjoy.
Chapter 2: A Storm in an Unfamiliar Form
The fires in the temple lamps flickers, casting shadows that dance along them. She hears the crashing sound of the heavy rain from the outside.
A sinister laugh echoes throughout the shrine—a familiar dark laugh she has been acquainted with for as long as she could remember. The laughter gets louder in her ears. She finds herself looking at the person standing in front of her, clad in dark cloak and donning the familiar white mask she can never forget, holding a blooded black sword in his hand now pointing towards the ground.
Beside that person, she finds one of her guards lying on the cracked and ruined temple floor more akin to a battle field, his sword broken in half lying beside him and his armour, made of the best quality steel gold can buy, badly tattered. His exposed skin full of flesh wounds still oozing with blood but does not appear to be fatal.
" He's still breathing." She hears another voice tell her. " Don't worry. I've kept that one alive." The sinister laugh comes back again. " Did you really think that just trying to use that sword will kill me?" She notes mockery in his voice. " You, of all people, should know you're not the wielder of the sword. You can't use it against me. You can only betray yourself with that sword." She wants to but she cannot refute those words. She glances at the black sword in her hand, gripping the hilt tighter in frustration. " Like what happened tonight…like what happened to that one as well…what was his name again?" There was an unnerving pause. " Ah!" She hears the voice exclaim. " …was it…Shiba Kaien?" Then the mocking laughter begins again.
She finds herself flinching at the name as she glares at the person with the mask. She feels herself shaking but from what, she cannot determine if it is fear, anger or frustration.
" How does it feel?" He asks her again in mockery. " Being powerless against me?" The words sting her. Only because his words are true. No matter how she struggles, they are words she cannot deny.
" Shut up!" She finally hears her voice again. " Powerless?" She asks bravely, putting a front. " Isn't the reason why you disrupted tonight's ritual is because you know that this will bring you to your end?!"
The person in front of her laughs again. " I'll have you know that I've already killed your beloved goddess' descendants. No one can wield that sword you treasure the most! I'm just trying to save you from wasting your time in this stupid ritual of yours. You should know all too well that this will only bring you nothing but harm." Letting out a scoff, he adds. " I don't know how I should call this? Brevity or Stupidity? You're gambling everything you have for an obvious loss!"
She laughs at him in turn. " That's where you're wrong!" She tells him with every bit of confidence she can still gather. " I have found him, the owner of this sword."
" What?!" There was a sudden alarm in the voice, the condescending laughter no longer audible. A sudden burst of dark aura releases and engulfs her, chokes her. " That's impossible!"
She lets out a constrained laugh with much difficulty as she gazes intently into the one wearing the mask. " Too bad for you, isn't it?" She asks then chants a prayer. Lights starts to emit around her body, struggling against the dark aura that is holding her captive.
" Hahaha! You foolish woman! " She hears the voice say. The impact of the struggle between two opposing powers causing sharp friction like sharp blade cutting through her flesh. She winces in pain as she tightens her hold of the sword. Then she chants another prayer—the miracle of directional tracing—a power consuming powerful miracle that she has practiced for years. She does not know if it will succeed but she's putting her all to this last hope.
" You're still trying to finish this ritual huh?" She hears the question but does not respond as she carries on chanting the words to complete the miracle. The light in her body grows stronger, slowly erasing the existence of the dark aura. The sinister presence begins to fade along with it. " Fine then! I'll let you off for now. Find that saviour of yours and let me deliver his head to you on a silver platter. Then I'll watch you wriggle in despair for all eternity." She chants the last word and the light explodes, blinding her in the process.
The sound of the rain fills her ears. She becomes aware of the feeling the cold wet earth below her and the thumping of the rain drops on her body. She is lying face flat outside in the middle of the storm. 'Ah, I succeeded.' She smiles despite not having any energy left to move, left out in a harsh unfamiliar environment. Her eyesight shakes as her eyelids begin to droop. Fatigue gets to her as she succumbs in the cold feeling brought by the rain. ' I'll rest for a moment.' She decides internally and lets herself go.
The next time she opens her eyes, she finds herself staring at the ceiling—an unfamiliar ceiling. Her body feels heavy and pain floods her causing her to let out a loud groan.
"Oh, you're finally awake?" An unfamiliar baritone voice suddenly asks from the side. She turns her head to that direction and the first thing she sees is a patch of striking orange coloured spiky hair. " How are you feeling?" She lets her eyes travel down and meets his amber eyes. The young male wears a scowl on his face yet she does not feel intimidated. Instead, she eyes him curiously without answering his question. She watches as the scowl turns into worry. " Can you hear me? Can you understand me?"
The question irritates her and she scowls at him. " I'm neither deaf nor duff." She answers crudely.
" Huh?!" The male seems to have lost his patience. " How am I supposed to know that if you don't even answer my questions?!"
" Well, don't go assuming that just because people don't feel like conversing with you!" She retorts, forgetting herself as she attempts to get up but fails as the pain comes back to her, much stronger than earlier. She lets out a disgruntled groan.
" Oi, idiot! Don't move too much!" The man yells as he rushes over beside her. "You're injured badly all over! You're gonna open your wounds again if you move carelessly."
She agrees to him in her mind as she settles herself back. " Who are you? Where am I?" She asks him.
" I'm Ichigo." He introduces. " My dad found you by the woods and brought you in."
" And this place is?"
" A village in the outskirts of Karakura." Ichigo supplies. " You've been unconscious for three days now. Do you remember what happened to you? You were badly wounded the night dad found you."
She closes her eyes as flashes of that nights memories appears in her mind. Then she opens them again and stares directly into Ichigo's amber eyes. She finds them very calming. " No." She answers and sees the colour of his eyes deepen. " My mind feels hazy."
" Do you remember anything then?" The creases in his brows deepens as well.
" I remember everything else." She tells him.
" Your name…do you remember your name?"
She ponders for a moment before answering. " Rukia. You can just call me Rukia."
-000-
Rukia takes a week to fully recover—much to Ichigo's surprise. A normal person with the extent of injuries similar to hers will take months to recover with scars remaining in their flesh. But Rukia's skin remains blemish-free like a miracle, like her injuries are merely a nightmare he has seen a week before.
She thanks his whole family profusely once she is out of bed and asks if she can stay longer as she has no possessions for her to survive with. His family accepts it without question—far too enthusiastically, especially his father who begins to suddenly address her 'third daughter'. Yuzu immediately takes a liking towards her. Karin, may still feel distant, but tolerates her far more than she will towards other strangers.
Ichigo silently watches as Rukia slowly intrudes in his family's life like it is the most normal course of events. He finds it strange, yet at the same time he finds it almost too natural.
" You're telling me you are older than my sisters yet you're that short?" He bursts out laughing as this fact but regrets it a second later when her fist lands in his gut. " Why are you so violent, you midget?!"
" Shut up, carrot-top! You fool dare to laugh at me?" She gives him a warning look and Ichigo closes his mouth shut. It is the first time he learns of her violent tendencies but it is not the last time he goes through it.
He fears he'll end up bruised if he prods further and decides to assume that she is the same age as him.
As more days pass by, he learns more about her personality without even the need to ask.
He figures how she likes rabbits when he finds her doodling something weird on the ground with a stick. " Is that a spider?"
He sees her turn towards him with a murderous look on her face. " It's a rabbit, you fool!"
Ichigo tilts his head to make out the rabbit she is claiming the squiggles to be. But he cannot see it. Rubbing his chin, he mindlessly comments. " You really suck at drawing, huh?" This earns him a powerful kick in the shin and Rukia walking out on him.
As clumsy as her drawings are, she is bad with doing bandages as well. She puts effort in learning them to help out in his father's clinic but fails in an epic manner. Thus, she is shunned out from there and ends up being sent with him most of the time to help out with errands, gathering healing herbs and medicines. Ichigo realizes how he spends more time with her than with the rest of his family nowadays—a duo running errands like overworked horses.
He finds it most annoying when she wanders off mid-journey and he spends half the day desperately searching for her to end up finding her doing random menial stuff. Then the task they are supposed to finish in an hour turns into a full day.
He notes how she likes one of his books where the protagonist is a rabbit named Chappy. She finishes the book and reads it again, sometimes loudly that he ends up memorizing the whole book against his will. He brings himself to find the full series as he cannot stand the boredom of hearing the whole story all over again for the tenth time—even if it means spending the night in the Capital in search for the books which he finds eventually after a full day of searching. He sees her eyes sparkle of joy when he hands the five books. He nods in satisfaction, saving himself from the torture of listening to Chappy's story again.
Ichigo notices her food likes and dislikes as she always sits beside him during meals, nit-picking on the way he eats, how his perpetual scowl makes people lose appetite and how he slouches when having his meal to the point that he learns to ignore her words when he eats. But then she kicks him when he does it so is forced to do what she wants.
She likes high places. Maybe it is because of her short stature that she makes up for it by climbing high places. She especially likes climbing up the tall tree in their backyard and sitting on its big branch then gaze into the horizon. Ichigo likes finding her there and sit beside her where they spend a comfortable silence. But it is also the time that he hates the most—the time when he feels Rukia is at arm's length yet sometimes Ichigo finds her out of reach, so far away. Whenever she lets her mind wander, whenever she keeps her thoughts to herself and just stares into the horizon. He feels as though she will disappear before his eyes like she is never there.
The thought bothers him. And it bothers him that he is bothered by it.
The sense of familiarity that comes with Rukia, despite the short time of knowing her, attacks him so suddenly and so naturally that he does not feel threatened by it. That is why the very thought alarms him. Then he decides to just ignore it.
" I think we're running out of eggs and cucumbers at home." Ichigo tells Karin when they are out to shop one afternoon. It is usually Yuzu and Karin who does grocery shopping but today, Yuzu decides to bake some cake with Rukia and sends him off with the other twin sister. " That midget's eating too much of them." He says as he stares at the list Yuzu gave them. His sister does not say anything but just stares at him. He turns to her to ask, " Is something on my face?"
He sees Karin shake her head no. " You've change, Ichi-nii."
" Really?" He ponders on her words but cannot seem to understand which part she refers to. " I think I'm still the same."
Karin shakes her head again and looks forward. " You're much livelier than you used to. You're interacting with us more." She appears to want to add more but stops herself.
He does not think too much of her words and replies without thinking as his eyes catches on the rabbit plushy in one of the stores' window. " Isn't it because Rukia keeps on nit-picking on me? Rather than becoming lively, she's riling me up way too much all of the time."
His sister does comment anymore but instead asks a different question, picking up a pumpkin from the vegetable stall in front of them. " Does Rukia-nee like pumpkins?"
" She prefers cucumbers." Ichigo answers without thinking, eyeing the green produce.
" I didn't know that. She never told me." Karin mentions, gently tapping the pumpkin with her finger.
"She didn't." Ichigo picks up cucumbers one by one, inspecting them. " I just noticed how she always steals the cucumbers on my plate every time."
" Heh." His sister smirks at him and he does not notice it. She is quite for a moment but then pops at him an unexpected question. " Do you like, Rukia-nee?"
The words causes him to freeze as he whips his head towards his sister and stares at her like she is crazy. His thoughts escapes his lips. " Are you crazy?! Who would like that mad woman?!"
He finds Karin momentarily studying his face before smiling meaningfully. " Just asking, Ichi-nii." Then she shrugs and says, "I was asking about liking her in general like how Yuzu seems to like her as a sister. So I didn't expect you to think about that was the kind of like I was talking about. I apologize for misleading you into thinking I'm talking about the kind of like you feel towards a woman. But I suppose, you can never see her other than that." She decides onesidedly as though stating the obvious.
" I-i-I don't like her like that, okay?!" He declares, after being at a loss for word for what feels like forever. " I don't." He insists.
" Yes, Ichi-nii." Karin answers him halfheartedly as she picks the produce to buy, ignoring his hysteria beside her. Then she grabs a strawberry and shoves it to his mouth. " Is it sweet?" She asks but does not wait for him to respond. " We should by some because maybe Rukia-nee likes strawberries as well."
He feels his eyes widen as he begins to taste the sweetness of the fruit in his tongue. He does not know which part surprised him.
" Your face is as red as that strawberry, Ichi-nii."