Only in death do we part only to meet again

Rukia looked back at the human world she came so attached to. The paved roads which they walked on many times. The silent sky in which nighttime birds found their home. The full moon that she had watched so many times with Ichigo. The swaying of the cherry trees in the summer breeze. The way the houses illuminated themselves with a quiet resonance of sleeping mortals.

Ichigo. Kurosaki. Strawberry.

Rukia. Kuchiki. Death.

Death and strawberry.

She looked down once again, watching his body writhe with pain and the shock of utter-defeat. His eyes still glazed over with blood streaming down his forehead, his body working at it's hardest just to stay alive. But even if you died, you'd still come after me. Wouldn't you Ichigo?

Deep down inside, she knew that he would come for her. But she wanted to believe that he would stay in the mortal world and just live his life. Maybe meeting if she was ever to be reborn, but she knew that wasn't the case. Ichigo... Only in death do we part only to meet again. That's the case isn't it? She felt some tears welling up in her eyes, not something she had done in so many months, years, decades. Something that a Shinigami was not suppose to do.

"Ichigo..." she said silently, watching him try to move, even though his body wouldn't allow him to.

He smiled. Ichigo smiled, even though his muscles probably wouldn't let him move his arms, "Did I say you can go anywhere, Rukia?" he asked with the upmost defiance in his voice, something Rukia had grown accustomed to, maybe even fallen in love to.

Watching her brother and friend walk away, one half-beaten, one half-annoyed, she turned around shortly, the tears cascading down her face, "If you even move from that spot, Ichigo Kurosaki, I will never forgive you." Her rough voice quickly became soft and gentle, "Please... lay there and think of happier times Ichigo." Down inside, that's all she wanted. Was just to be happy.

She never knew what smiling was like until she met Ichigo.

She didn't know what having friends who were always there was like until she met Ichigo.

She wasn't accustomed wearing clothes that made everyone different until she met Ichigo.

She didn't know how crying was like the rain until she met Ichigo.

She hadn't fallen in love until she met Ichigo.

Maybe so, maybe not. But all she wanted was to see him one last time before she left. But not like this.