Disclaimer: After finally getting a job as the youngest English teacher ever in a high school filled with students the same age as I am, I managed to buy Bleach – to do some long-overdue washing. I'd need a job that pays at least four thousand times more than mine does if I want to own Bleach. A job I don't have – I'll just shut up now, I'm making myself feel bad.
This chapter is brought to you by my New Year hopes! All one of them.
The First Guardian
Chapter Ten – Landscaping and Gundams
"Have you tried asking Chad to help you? He's pretty strong."
"I'm quite sure I am stronger than he is right now. Don't try denying it; I've caught you staring when I come out wearing only a towel."
Rukia groaned at Ichigo's answer. They were currently in the outskirts of Karakura, skipping class for reasons only Ichigo knew until she found him trying to pull out what looked like a big metallic brick.
Big was putting it mildly, though. It was at least the size of a car and according to Ichigo, it was at least three times longer than it looked – the rest was buried underground.
"What is this thing here anyways?" Rukia asked while knocking on the big block, proving it was not hollowed out in the slightest.
Ichigo just tilted his head as his face lit up happily, as if he had been expecting the question, "Why, it's my latest experiment of course."
Rukia's eyes widened, and before she interrogated him further took one, then two, and finally three dozen steps away from the solid mass of metal.
"Experiment? You somehow ended up making this? And what do you mean 'latest'? What else have you done?" She was nearly hysterical towards the end. For all she liked Ichigo, she knew he was absurdly dangerous to himself, but, as it turned out, anything dangerous to him was usually large enough in scale to put everything and everyone around him in even more danger.
Ichigo had to resist rolling his eyes as he motioned her to get closer again, "Jeez, relax, princess. It's just my Zanpakutō."
Five seconds of silence came after that. Then those five seconds turned into ten. And by the time they became twenty seconds Rukia was once more next to him. When the thirty second mark hit she was taking a deep breath and out of her mouth came a very, perhaps scarily so, calm, "What."
Ichigo could have sworn that if it had been written, it would have lacked a question mark.
"It's my Zanpa-"
And that was the second time in all of her existence that Kuchiki Rukia managed to smack Ichigo. In the back of her mind, she realized there was probably a pattern of situations she could exploit to manage such feat more consistently.
"I heard what you said perfectly clear! What the hell do you mean this is your Zanpakutō? Wait…" Rukia got a bewildered look on her face, "Is this your Shikai?" The last question was somewhat less incredulous than the previous ones were, she really wouldn't have been very surprised if Ichigo's Zanpakutō was this. That last thought made her fear for her own mental health.
Ichigo actually rolled his eyes this time, "No, and you're a very silly, perhaps mildly retarded, person for even considering that." He turned around to deliberately ignore the glare he was sure she would be sporting.
Normally, Rukia wouldn't have fallen for this game, in which she asked a question, got a half answer for it and even more questions, until she was so frustrated that the actual answer was pretty underwhelming. After all, it was a game Ichigo liked very much, and abused it to get out of trouble. It was quite normal to feel less troubled by something when it turns out to be smaller than what you had fooled yourself into thinking it was. Even if it was actually a pretty big deal and made Ichigo an ass for playing with your mind like that. This time the goal of the game wasn't that, of course. He just wanted to piss her off.
Right now, however, Rukia had just been told that a gigantic block of seemingly unbreakable steel was buried mostly underground and to top it all, she was told it was a Zanpakutō. So forgive her for falling for it this time.
"Then what the hell is it?"
"I told you, it's my Zanpakutō."
"Why is it a gigantic metal block?"
"Because that was part of my experiment?"
"What experiment?"
"The one that made my Zanpakutō a block, of course."
She was starting to hyperventilate, she was really, really annoyed and Ichigo was glad he had his back turned otherwise his extremely smug grin would have given him away. He decided to stop; after all, he kind of wanted to gloat right now.
"So you remember how I changed my sword's density by manipulating the spirit particles that made it up, right?"
Rukia stopped seething now that he was apparently going to give her answers, so she answered quickly, "Yes."
"Good, so I wanted to see just how I could go about changing it by adding and in some cases removing particles from both around, to play with forms, and inside, to play with density, of my sword just to see what I could actually do with it."
Rukia had thought about that a week or so after his initial experiment to toughen up his sword, actually. But figured Ichigo wasn't keen on trying any further than that after he nearly blew himself up. She was obviously wrong.
"How did it go?"
Ichigo finally turned to face her with a victorious face – or was that a mad scientist grin? "It was a success! I managed to turn my sword from a massive broadsword to a simple katana, then from that into a decently-sized hammer, and then into a kusarigama (chain-sickle), and many, many other cool things."
"Things from manga and videogames, you mean."
"Quiet, you."
Rukia nodded and pretended to only be mildly curious as she stated her next question as, after all, the more curious Ichigo saw you, the more tempted he was to not tell you anything, "And how did this," she pointed at the huge block, "happen?"
Now Ichigo frowned, "Well, after all of that I tried to see if I had any limits, manipulating spirit particles can't just be that easy, after all. Otherwise everyone would be doing it."
Rukia's eye twitched, then decided not to tell him that he was doing something that would make quite a few people curious enough to open him up and check just how the hell he did things. That could only encourage him further.
"Oh yeah, there's a very interesting experiment involving the conversion of spirit particles into hard metal alloys that I did not take into consideration before. It opens oh-so-many delicious possibilities…" Ichigo trailed off with a very hopeful look as he stared far into the future, and Rukia felt shivers go up and down her spine.
"Anyways, so I tested my limits. I made my Zanpakutō as large and dense as I could without any regards to shape, initially, at least. I thought up a shape halfway through it as I didn't want to end up with a huge, hard, blob. The first thing that came to mind is a square, which then turned into a block, mostly because I hate boxes, I guess."
That was another story Rukia didn't want to hear.
"So I had this massive block attached to a handle as large as I am, but that was okay, I could lift it, it wasn't as heavy as it looked." That was pretty normal, Rukia figured. Zanpakutō are always lighter for their owners.
Ichigo now had an embarrassed look on his face, "Then a flock of birds flew by me and I got a bit distracted trying to hit them with it – then I kind of dropped my brick."
"I am not a brick."
"Don't worry; I'll love you even if you're a fat-ass."
"Asshole."
"Funny thing about bricks, they have the most interesting tendency of doing the exact opposite thing to floating. So it fell half a thousand or so feet down to the ground, and buried itself handle-first." Ichigo finished it with a shrug.
Rukia blinked before deciding to ignore how ridiculous it all was and going straight for the problem, "So why can't you pull it out? You were able to lift it before." She was starting to speculate if maybe his powers over the Zanpakutō disappeared upon letting go of the handle, then he answered.
"Well, as anyone with even the slightest understanding of how things work could tell you, when you put things in the ground, the ground itself is displaced instead of conveniently disappearing." He figured it being convenient only applied to the current situation, "And I kind of lied to you about how big it is."
She kept her not-really-curious look as she asked, "How much did you lie to me?"
"I'm fairly sure this hill we're standing on wasn't here before I dropped my brick."
Now her eyes bulged as she looked around the apparently just-made hill – that was quite a bit of displaced earth!
"And well, pulling it out will leave a hole that will then fill itself with all the dirt around – which will inevitably result in a little bit more than the usual landscaping I allow myself to do during my experiments."
She nodded while silently wondering just when he gave a damn about the land.
"It's bound to be hilarious, but innocent critters live around here, and they could get pulled underground along with their homes – which I figure are already in a little bit of disarray from the whole creating-a-hill thing I did."
She raised an eyebrow and looked at him, "I thought you didn't like animals?"
Ichigo looked offended, "I do like animals!"
"Then why do you go around hitting birds?"
"I fucking hate birds."
"You named one of your attacks after the Phoenix."
"I named it after the Phoenix's fire, not after the bird itself. Fuck the bird."
"I'm changing the name of that technique at the first chance I get."
"As long as it's not dragons. Overused as all hells."
She snorted, when he started swearing it meant he was serious, even if the context made it funny.
"So what are you planning to do?"
Ichigo leaned against his transformed Zanpakutō and took on a thinking pose, it was a one she was used to seeing and knew she wasn't the only one to think he looked 'cute' or maybe 'cool' while doing it – Tatsuki and Orihime thought the same, as well as several other girls from school – in which he put his left arm across his body under his right elbow while twirling a lock of his long orange hair on his right hand, he faced the ground as he did so while his usual frown became less pronounced – it looked as if he was relaxed, even.
"That's the problem; I have no idea how to go about it. I obviously have to refill the hole so that it doesn't suck in everything around it, but I have no idea what to fill it with or how I would carry all of it here, or even how to put it in as I pull out my Zanpakutō."
"This is one of those moments I remember that building company that left town some time ago, they really missed out." Ichigo's Zanpakutō was being as unhelpful as its own sense of humor allowed.
"What if we ask Urahara?"
Ichigo grimaced, all his thoughts currently crashing against each other, "I don't like owing that man favors, I already owe him one too many."
"You do? Why?"
"I asked him to install a whole network in all of the girls' facilities at school." Ichigo had an 'I did something right' look on his face as he said it all.
"You… didn't, did you?" She was starting to radiate as little Reiatsu as her weakened state allowed.
Ichigo snorted, "Of course not, you gullible midget. I could easily install those cameras myself." He waved her off as if the answer was obvious.
Said person of small stature facepalmed.
Ichigo sighed, "Well, I suppose we have no better option at this point in time. Can you go get the geta-weirdo here? My sword would get unbearably bitchy if I go and leave him here."
Rukia nodded and left. Had she known that she would be leaving behind a Kurosaki Ichigo that was now enraptured in the subject of Zanpakutō and their nature; she would have tried to knock him out first.
"You're walking funny."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Rukia was now walking beside Urahara Kisuke, followed by the other three inhabitants of the Urahara-Shōten.
The man, upon hearing the nature of Rukia's request, had agreed suspiciously fast and then made 'preparations' while moving around faster than an ill person should.
He also apparently had a cold, and walked funny, though she figured he had his reasons for not wanting to admit it.
"I am actually surprised something like this didn't happen sooner or quite more often, actually." Urahara said as they neared the newly-formed hill.
Rukia figured she knew the answer to that one, but still asked for the sake of keeping conversation going, "How so?"
"He reminds me a lot of myself, you see."
She nearly did a double-take, "You're nothing alike!"
"Hmmm… maybe so. Yes, the less the better…" He was now muttering to himself and hiding his whole expression behind his trademark fan.
She would have pursued the subject but they had finally arrived at their destination.
"Wow, now, I've seen quite a few big ones in my life. But yours takes the cake, Ichigo. You must be very proud."
The Shinigami girl felt there was something she wasn't getting.
"I am, actually. So are you here to gawk at the size or to help me with getting rid of said enlargement?"
It was tickling the back of her mind, and she was growing frustrated.
"Well, I can't pull it out. It's too large for me to even wrap my arms around."
"I'll pull it out, but I guess I'd need some sort of lubricant first to not tear up the hole too much."
Then she got it, proceeded to nod to herself in congratulations, and then grabbed the back of their heads and smashed them against the steel block.
"Would you two cut it out already?"
They rubbed their heads in badly-faked embarrassment, and then proceeded to talk in hushed whispers. Rukia didn't like that, it made shivers go down her spine and she made sure the two knew it.
"What're you two talking about now?"
Ichigo turned to look at her, "Well," he had a funny smile on his face, "Kisuke here – bright fellow that he is, just told me how amazingly convenient it is that I dug a hole he had been looking forward to digging himself." He turned to look at the shop owner, who continued the explanation, "And then I told him I'd get him some naked pictures of Yoruichi, my hot female assistant, if he would let me make use of the fruit of his bird-hunting for the greater good." Kisuke said it all while tapping the ground around the sword – or block – with a cane.
Rukia was seriously beginning to regret suggesting Urahara came over to help – putting those two together meant bad things would happen. And she'd probably end up caught up in it.
"Greater Good?" She asked.
"Goodness, no. If you capitalize the words it makes it sound like some sort of Machiavellian plan I've got going. I just mean a good that is greater than the usual good. Like helping old ladies cross the street, or saving a life in the Operation Room. Mine is much better than all that codswallop."
Rukia didn't know what bothered her more, what Urahara said, the way he said it, or that Ichigo was nodding along with it.
Urahara closed his fan and tapped Ichigo's left shoulder with it while giving him a big smile, "Alright, let's begin. Everyone get to their positions!"
Rukia watched with thinly-veiled curiosity as Tessai, Jinta and Ururu took positions on every side of the block, with Ichigo holding onto it from one of the corners.
"Ready? Alright Ichigo, pull that beauty out!"
And pull he did. Although Rukia had not known what to expect, she most definitely couldn't be prepared by what looked like a hundred and fifty feet of massive metallic block to fly faster than anything that big should be able to in such a short time. The earth shook for a second and Rukia's attention was pulled from the now smaller chunk of metal to the hole it had left behind.
Or well, she would have looked at it if it weren't for the fact that there was now a rather sizeable tent around it. A stripped tent, colored green and white, with a sign that said 'People Working' along with a cartoon Kisuke Urahara wearing a hard hat and his fan. She could hear the sound of hammering – absurdly fast hammering and… running water?
"Relax Kuchiki-san. We specialize in this sort of thing at the Urahara-Shōten." Spoke the man with a shop named after him from Rukia's right. She turned towards him with a bewildered look on her face.
"How did you do this so fast? Better question, what the heck is this?"
The man in the bucket hat just kept fanning his face, the motion let Rukia see the amused smile he probably wore any time he wasn't sleeping. Maybe he slept like that, too. Ichigo certainly frowned in his sleep.
"Just boring stuff, really. Don't worry about it, Ichigo sure doesn't."
"Ichigo doesn't worry about absolutely anything at all. Ever." She wanted to say that, but she supposed it wasn't true – Ichigo just didn't let his worries show. His burdens were his own, after all. She kept herself from sighing, she liked that, it was a testament to his strength and will, but that attitude never led anywhere good. "Ichigo can't carry the world and remain unchanged." She wouldn't tell him that, he'd probably try to find a way to do it just to prove her wrong.
Ichigo landed next to her, his sword now a manageable size. Manageable for him, at least. "So are we done here?" The question as directed at Urahara.
"I think we- oh, wait." He snapped his fan shut and motioned for Ichigo to get closer. They were once more speaking in whispers, and Rukia knew better than to try to pry, but it didn't stop her eye from twitching when she saw Urahara hand Ichigo a box. "He said something about pictures." She was getting pissed off now.
"Alright, let's get out of here. Rukia, where's Kon?" Ichigo asked as they walked away from the noise caused by – whatever was happening under that tent.
"Knocked out. What did he give you?" Rukia's tone was ice-cold. It had been a while since she last spoke like that, and she was not a little bit out of practice. Her Nii-sama would be proud.
"You knocked him out? He's gonna be absolutely unbearable the rest of the day." Ichigo completely ignored her question, which only served to make her tone even more venomous.
"Ichigo. Box. Is it pictures?"
"Seriously, I'm gonna have to leave him as a pill, and he really hates that. He has a calendar now; he knows what days he misses-"
"Kurosaki Ichigo!"
"You're in trouble."
"She looks-"
"Hot when angry? Sexy?"
"Sure, whatever."
Ichigo sighed, "Yes, Rukia. They are pictures. Pictures of a very sexy woman. Naked."
Rukia's eye twitched, "I see." She turned away from him, but refrained from just writing the whole thing off and being angry with him until god-knows-when, "He has a reason. He better do."
For the first time since they had met, Ichigo actually took on a defensive tone, "It's not like I want them because I want to look at a naked woman- I mean, uh…" he took a deep breath, "I don't want them for any reason Keigo and Mizuiro would want them for."
Rukia did not expect him to explain himself in such an apologetic manner, she smiled inwardly, this was probably a good sign, "Then what do you want them for?"
Ichigo's tone went full-on lecture mode, "You see: Yoruichi Shihōin is not a modest person when it comes to her body. She's actually a bit of an exhibitionist, so normally pictures like this would not bother her at all," Ichigo now had a winner's smirk, "But see, she only likes having her body exposed with her consent, and these particular pictures are ones she does not know about. Taken during the period of time in which she still was captain of the second division, as well as commander of the Onmitsukidō. Back then, there were rumors running all over Seireitei about how the second division captain liked to prance around her home in her birthday suit. Rumors started by the one person who actually managed to see it as well as collect evidence on it – evidence I now hold."
Rukia apparently understood, "Blackmail?"
"Partly, yeah. As I said, even though she's not modest about her body, back then she had a reputation to maintain. And as I said, she was prancing, as in, literally. While naked." He let out a chuckle as he shook his head, "Another reason is that these are, well, pictures of a naked Yoruichi Shihōin, people would give several limbs for one of these." He looked her in the eye, "Naturally, I would never play with her privacy like this, but circumstances always change."
Rukia accepted his explanation, and then felt a bit silly, so she tried to switch the subject, "Are you always this prepared?"
Ichigo snorted, "I have a silver cross and several rolls of duct tape under my bed, a box in a location only I know about in case an Ichigo Kurosaki from the future deems sending me a message necessary, I carry picklocks in all of my shoes, I secretly own a car I keep parked on the other side of town, I had Kisuke make fake European passports for the both of us, I own a condo in Tokyo that I bought while disguised as a foreign woman by the name of 'Falsa', I bought the warehouse my sister's bodyguards use as base so that I could legally build a separate room large enough to fit a Gundam, just in case I do get a Gundam."
Rukia blinked, "What?"
"Hey, I'm Japanese. We're practically born with both the right to like Gundams, and to be crazy at some level. Be glad I only have one of those traits."
"Are you done yet?" Ichigo yelled at his room's door. Rukia was taking longer than usual to get ready.
"You haven't told me what we're doing today!"
When they got home after the whole sword-block mishap, Ichigo got back into his body and – after getting dressed – told Rukia to put on something comfortable yet pretty to go out.
"I told you, woman. We're going downtown."
The door to his room opened, and Rukia stepped out wearing a dress and matching sandals. It was a cyan dress adorned with pink cherry petals at the hem. The sandals had the same color scheme.
"She has pretty feet."
"I hope this doesn't turn into a fetish."
"Go fuck yourself."
Ichigo smiled at her curious look, he wasn't wearing much she hadn't seen before, plain jeans and brown shoes, a brown jacket and under it his favorite 1-5 shirt. Both he and his Zanpakutō admitted it was a horrible pun, but they both liked the faces people made when he introduced himself wearing that shirt.
"Very well, princess. Time to go."
Rukia wasn't just going to let it go like that, "Where, exactly, are we going? And why is this so much different from when we usually go out?"
Ichigo opened the front door of the Kurosaki home and gave her an elegant, over-the-top bow as she stepped out, "We're going wherever we want to go when we get there. And it's different because this time, it's a date, princess."
Rukia stopped.
Then she resumed walking, putting up an amused front, "I… Okay." She smiled outwardly.
Inwardly, however, she was panicking.
She was panicking hard.
Her mind was currently the equivalent of a galaxy-wide catastrophe that brought the planets together and threw them at every gas giant known and unknown – and then those exploded.
Kuchiki Rukia was a typical, high-ranked noblewoman. She was highly educated both as a noble and a Shinigami. When she was not working, she was expected to be the perfect lady, witty, charming, self-sufficient and most importantly, prepared.
She was taught how to proceed in every single scenario that the Kuchiki family could face, from minor economical problems to the clan's near-extinction. She had spent the time she was not training or working preparing for everything. Despite what Ichigo might think, she adapted pretty fast to the human world, and anyone else in her position would still be panicking over every little thing. She had great social skills that she could adapt to be more fitting in the human world – thing weren't so much different, really. Well, except for one thing that was completely different, it was also the reason she was panicking harder than a roach in chicken party.
Courting.
Relationships in the human world, the romantic ones, were completely different from those of the noble families in the Seireitei. Or at least the development was. Most, if not all, marriages in the noble families were arranged out of convenience, fancy, or tradition. She was trained for all of those situations and every possible variation of it, from proper wording of proposals to procedures to deal with an adulterous spouse.
Now, in the human world, none of that mattered. Everyone, or at least most people, met someone they came to love, and the relationship was nurtured over time before even thinking about formalization, some did it fast, others slower, and some didn't even marry. It was always about mutual, selfish interest, love.
She had absolutely no idea what to do. Does she go about it normally? Is she expected to do something? Wasn't he supposed to propose an encounter of that kind before it happened? Was he? Did her silence imply she accepted? Was this all normal? How was she going to keep up a normal act when, of all the people, it was Kurosaki Goddamn Ichigo that had just decided they were going on a date?
Before her thoughts turned towards the future of that sort of relationship she felt someone's – Ichigo's right hand holding her left hand. She turned to see him smile reassuringly.
"Hey, calm down. I don't expect you to do anything. Let me take the lead, and if at any point you feel like ending it, then we will. Just think of it as any other day."
"If only you believed half the crap you just said."
"If only you would shut up for the rest of the day. I should shut you out."
"You can do that?"
"I can try."
"I'll be good. Don't wanna miss your first, non-consensual, date."
Ichigo frowned and looked at his hand holding hers, "It's probably too late to do this, I just wanted to avoid the awkwardness of it all, but… Do you want to go out on this date with me?"
Rukia thought about it, actually. She knew what date meant, that's why she had panicked. In the human world, a date was usually the beginning of the pursuit for a romantic relationship. She wouldn't fool herself thinking any reason to reject him would involve her not being attracted to him. Reasons she could think about included: One, a surely tumultuous future for the relationship, of which she couldn't quite grasp the full ramifications. And two, she was too damn nervous to make any proper judgments, because she really had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do.
She felt like an actor thrown to the scenario, with no clothes on, doing a play written in an unknown language without knowing a single one of the lines, in front of every person on the world.
"I…" She looked down at their intertwined hands, she chastised herself for being like this, she was usually confident enough to go through everything; she would have broken down by now otherwise. Then looked at Ichigo's hand, it was his fault she was like this. Then she smiled, "So he better take responsibility." It was him; after all, he wouldn't bite unless she bit him first. Or it was Friday on an odd day on a month ending with the letter 'R'. Or something equally ridiculous.
"Okay." She nodded, and turned her smile towards him.
Ichigo nodded back and they resumed walking, neither letting go of the other's hand.
They didn't walk too much long after that before they arrived at downtown Karakura, it still was an hour or so before sundown, and everywhere was filled with people. They just kept walking until something caught their eye, and then they'd have some fun. Ichigo found out Rukia could make a crane machine's crane actually look like it wasn't weaker than a baby's grip. And before they got kicked out of the soda fountain the crane machine was in due to her absurd skill with it, she managed to win a bunny plushy she insisted on calling 'Chappy' like the rabbit she liked to draw so much, even if it was a rather realistic bunny plushy, unlike Chappy the Rabbit, who was rather cartoonish.
He smiled through it all, and laughed when every other toy she won at the crane machine was abandoned at the entrance as they left.
"I can't believe they just give these away!" Rukia said hugging the bunny to her chest.
"They don't, you have to put some coins in it."
"It's still too cheap! Isn't it?"
"It… yeah, I guess so." He shook his head and kept walking; it was still just the beginning.
They entered an amusement park next, and Rukia discovered roller coasters. And there went the rest of their day, actually. She really, really liked roller coasters. After their first time, she immediately demanded they let her get on again, and Ichigo informed her she had to get in the line again.
It was funny to see her pouting over that, but Ichigo and his sword agreed that it was even funnier when she considered using her memory modifier to cut into the line.
It was now dark, and Rukia had finally decided they should do something else, and then she spotted a Ferris wheel.
"What's that, Ichigo?" She pointed at it.
"It's a Ferris wheel, it's a calm ride, you just spin slowly, people get on it mostly to enjoy a quit time while looking at the town from on high."
"What for? I can do that from the roller coaster."
"You can't have a quiet time on a roller coaster."
"You can't make out on a roller coaster, either."
"Fair enough, guess you have a point."
"Let's get on it, Rukia." Ichigo walked ahead of her before she could protest, not that she would. So far the day had been about her having fun. If Ichigo wanted to get on the slow, seemingly boring ride, she would indulge him. Just this time, though.
The line was shorter, with either parents and their smallest children or couples. It was only a couple of minutes before they got on.
At first Rukia wasn't all that impressed, and then she caught sight of Karakura town at night from above. It wasn't that much of a big town, and she HAD seen it before, but it was a different experience to see it during her fun time rather than while working. "Not that I got to do much done, anyways." She frowned at that thought.
Ichigo had been pensive the whole ride, sitting in front of her, supporting his head with his hands, elbows on his knees and intertwined hands covering the lower half of his face.
"Rukia."
The Shinigami girl turned from the view and looked at her date. That thought still made her feel funny.
"Hmm?"
"I've been meaning to ask, but… don't you miss your Zanpakutō?"
Rukia didn't expect a work-related question, much less one being asked in such a worried manner. "Actually, I…"
She blinked.
She had not been in conversation with Sode no Shirayuki since the night she gave Ichigo her powers. She had missed the familiar feel of her sword at her hip and it was always reassuring to know there was someone else at her side at all times. She realized, however, things were different for Ichigo.
"It's not like you, Ichigo."
Ichigo's hand fell from his face and he leaned back on his seat.
"What do you mean?"
Rukia sat up straight, her hands playing with the hem of her dress, she spoke with a somewhat confused frown, "Well… we Shinigami develop a link with our Zanpakutō, they are, after all, what make us what we are. Once we reach a level of understanding, our full abilities are made available. We can refine those in order to make ourselves stronger, our Zanpakutō going with us all the way. However, Shinigami and their Zanpakutō are more like comrades rather than close friends. And I don't think there's anyone who has even heard of anything like the link you and your sword share. He's with you at all times, his thoughts come to you as if they were your own. You're close, very close, so that's why I guess you would miss him terribly if he went away."
"I feel special."
"You are, as in Special Olympics, that is."
"I guess I do miss my partner, somewhat. But not in the way I would miss you or any of my close friends." She blushed a bit after she said that, but didn't lose her pensive face, "I wonder how you came to develop this link…" She looked at the floor, lost in thought.
Ichigo smiled, "Rukia…" She turned her look back towards him, "Thanks." He gave her a very grateful smile.
Rukia's heart skipped a beat, it was the combination of his smile, plus the several levels of gratitude that word included in it, that made her suddenly forget that breathing was something everyone was meant to do.
"Don't… don't be silly! Anyone who knew would have explained that to you if you'd asked!" She was getting flustered, and was trying to pass it off as if it was just thanks for the lecture. They both knew it was thanks for well, a lot of things.
Ichigo chuckled and reached with his right hand into his jacket. His hand returned with a box held in his hands.
"Here, take this."
Rukia took the box from his hand and examined it, it was brown, wooden, and large enough to fit two sheets of paper side-to-side, and it was-
It was the box Urahara had given him.
"I don't want these pictures!" She suddenly held it away from her as if it was venomous.
Ichigo rolled his eyes, "Don't be silly, I already removed the pictures. I didn't get just that from Kisuke, you know."
Rukia frowned and looked at the box; it was still a box with something Urahara Kisuke had given to Ichigo, which was enough to make her worry. And when did they get on a first-name basis anyways?
"Go ahead, open it. I'm not gifting you a box, you know."
Rukia slowly, hesitantly, opened the wooden box. She then got a look inside, and she didn't know what to think for a second.
Ichigo looked a bit embarrassed, "I, uh, couldn't find any like those in the human world, so I asked Kisuke to have those made."
Rukia pulled out of the box a- a set of crayons.
Chappy themed crayons.
There were 64 crayons, far more colors than she had ever used before and every single one of them had Chappy the Rabbit's face on them.
"Do you like-"
Then two things happened, the door to their cabin opened, which meant the ride was over and they had to get off, but that was slightly less important seeing as the other thing that happened was Ichigo receiving the mother of all bear-hugs and having the breath knocked out of him by said hug, all courtesy of the half-Shinigami, half-cuddly projectile Kuchiki Rukia. He did not care one whit about breath, though.
"Told you she would love them."
"I never said she wouldn't."
They were now home, and this was another part of the date that wouldn't be normal. The rule was that the guy would walk the girl home, they'd say their goodnights, which could be different depending on the number of successful dates so far, and then he'd leave for home happy guy. Or he wouldn't, but that was something for considerably more advanced relationships.
The thing is, Rukia kind of lives with him, so the date would have to end with him walking her to his, or her, closet.
"I don't remember how it looked like inside."
So there they were, both smiling after their successful date. Ichigo decided to cut the not-so-uncomfortable silence.
"Well, I guess that's it, uh, good night, Rukia."
The girl nodded at him, holding both the plushy and the crayon box to her chest, and turned to enter her closet.
Ichigo looked at the closet for a few moments after it closed, he then changed into more comfortable sleepwear and jumped onto his bed, the silence in his head was broken when his head hit the pillow.
"I give that goodnight a two out of ten."
"Cut me some slack, no kissing on the first date."
"… I suppose that's the generally accepted rule."
Ichigo stared at the ceiling a blank look on his face, then stood up from his bed like a flash, his cover flying all the way to the wall opposite from his bed; he walked towards his closet and knocked.
"Rukia?"
…
"Yes?"
"Are you decent?"
"I changed into my pajamas alrea-"
The closet door suddenly opened and she was temporarily blinded by the sudden light, she had not turned on her dim reading lamp yet, so it took her a moment to become accustomed to it.
"Good." Was all she heard from the now-clear figure of Kurosaki Ichigo before she felt a hand tip her chin up.
And then her brain probably fried.
It came back to life couple of seconds later, and she realized her eyes hurt a bit; they went absurdly wide at some point or another. Oh, and Ichigo was kissing her.
Before everything inside her head got toasted again, she decided to close her eyes and kiss back. It was a chaste kiss, not much of a lip mashing, just a soft, typical goodnight kiss.
They came apart four seconds later, both flustered and breathing deeply, Ichigo nodded with a smile, "Goodnight, Rukia."
Her eyes were half-lidded for a moment, then they opened fully again and she returned Ichigo's gesture, "Goodnight, Ichigo."
Ichigo turned around as the closet door closed behind him, he walked towards his discarded covers and brought them back to bed with him, he laid back down feeling a lot better than when he did it moments before.
"Screw the rules."
"Damn straight."
Cut!
Let's end it there for now, this chapter was originally a LOT different from how it currently is. In fact, the whole date scene was scheduled for another chapter, but I decided since I had another long delay that I had to give you romantic types something so that I wouldn't get my inbox murdered. I like my inbox, thank you.
So, once again, sorry for the delay, my computer died, I managed to put another computer together from several other parts and an old motherboard I had lying around. My computer is currently a motherboard and a big mess of wires lying next to my monitor. It can't do crap. It skips frames and gets stuck when I scroll down in a word processor, seriously. But it was enough for me to finish this up and move on to the next, which is actually action-packed, without missing the usual humor.
In other news, I have about three and a half weeks left on this semester and I have no idea what the fuck is going on around me, so I won't be writing again until at least Thursday. I do promise, however, to have the next chapter out by next week at the latest, though I'm hoping to have it ready before Saturday.
On the beta search: I decided to stay as I am for the moment, solo. I do believe a beta reader would do this story wonders, but I feel it would probably slow me down and mess up my current timing. Not to mention I'm a horribly petty, mean person and I don't want anyone reading this before everyone else does.
…
What?
Someone reviewed saying I promised a lemon. I also got several PMs from other people talking about those. I'd like to address this issue by saying: I have no idea when I said that.
If you mean the summary, it says Sexual content, which could mean anything from Ichigo describing to several disturbed bystanders the sexual intercourse of made-up aliens, to particularly descriptive, raunchy, sweaty smut. There's a lot between those two things that would require an M-rating. Truthfully, I'm a bit on the fence about lemons, I've ghost-written a few of them, won't tell you which, so I know I can do it. But… for this story? I don't know.
Oh well, you know the FF dot net drill, leave me your thoughts if you feel like sharing any in a review. Oh, and if you do, could you please tell me what you think about anonymous reviews? I don't think I want to allow those, I'd probably get more if I did, but… again, I don't know.
- Flameal out.