This is sort of sad, I guess. :D It is Renji's POV, for those who can't pick it up.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or the characters.
Until The End
She doesn't love me. Never has, never will. She loves him, and I used to hate him for it. I blamed him as the reason that she never loved me. I blamed him because he dropped into her life and completely took her from me. Even when I came back, she didn't talk to me like I was a friend; she talked to me like someone who had tried to kill a man she loved.
And I wish I had.
Sometimes, I wish I had killed that man. If he had been dead, though, he would have never saved Rukia. And she would be dead, too, and she wouldn't be alive today for me to love, even if she doesn't love me back.
Then, after we had taken her back and locked her up, when I told Rukia that Ichigo was in Soul Society, it broke my heart to see the look of pure happiness and hope on her face, even if just for a second. She hadn't looked that way at me the who time I had visited her. She hadn't looked at me like than when I had visited her before, either. She hadn't looked at me like that all week.
But the glow in her eyes was enough to make me nearly want to run from the room.
So I did.
I think the time I stopped hating him was when he was training. I was with him, down in the underground training room that Urahara and Yoruichi had built years and years ago. When I told him that Rukia was going to be killed the very next day, the look in his eyes as he vowed to finish in that time if he had to completely changed my perspective. What I saw in his eyes scared me. The look of determination made me want to back away from him. His whole body was radiating with such determination and anger; I knew he loved her, too.
It's always been like that with them. When Captain Kuchiki had nearly killed Ichigo, Rukia would have added over twenty years to her sentence if she had run to him, but she had said she didn't care. She didn't care.
But she did. She cared about him, not about what happened to her. She cared so much that she was actually nearly crying, which I had rarely ever seen her do in the many, many years I had known her, as she told Ichigo not to follow her, or she would never forgive him. She cared about him so much that she had forbade him to come, even though she knew she would probably die.
I saw it in her eyes and I saw it in his.
And when he threw her down from the SÅkyoku, something I don't think she ever forgave him for, he told me to protect her with my life.
And even though I couldn't see the look on his face, I heard it in his voice.
He wanted to be the one to protect her, to run away with her, but he knew he couldn't; he had to protect her by fighting someone no one else could win.
Byakuya Kuchiki.
He had fought him with every last breath, and some of it was for his pride, but most of the reason he fought was to protect her. When we train now, when he removes his shirt after training, I see the scars all over his body. They are huge and they're many. But the most noticeable ones are from where Senbonzakura had cut his body in a million places. The scars are small, and will fade in time, but they are scattered all over his chest and back. And when I asked him how come he doesn't try and hide his scars, he had said,
"Because I gained them protecting someone who means the world to me."
And that was the closest he had ever gotten to telling me that he loved her.
But now . . . I don't hate him anymore. I hate myself as I watch him struggling for another breath. He is laying out on the floor, his orange hair sweaty and clinging to the side of his head. Light filters in through the windows and lights up the whole room, but I watch from the shadows.
Rukia is sitting at his side, holding his hand tightly in hers as she tries to hold back tears.
And I hate myself for hating him. He had done nothing but gain Rukia's love, and I hated him for it. I love her, too, but . . .
As I watch them, I would give anything to go back in time and try to stop this. But it can't be stopped, I don't think. It was fate that brought him here, and there's nothing I can do about it.
But I wish I could.
But he's dying. He contracted a terrible illness a few months back, and he's dying.
And she is with him until the end.
I watch from the shadows as he reaches up a thin, pale hand and places it on her cheek. He whispers,
"Please, you don't have to cry for me."
I hadn't realized that she had started crying. I hadn't realized that it was breaking her so hard inside.
"Love ya."
I watched as Rukia's tears came faster as she whispered the words back to him before pressing a fleeting kiss to his lips.
"Stay with me, Rukia," Ichigo whispers.
She holds back a sob as she says, just as quietly,
"Until the end."
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