Inner Conflict — XXI
"You're a stubborn and I don't know why I put up with you."
Ichigo looked over his shoulder. Rukia was standing in the door of his office, obviously annoyed. "Because you love me?" He suggested, smiling weakly. Rukia wasn't amused. Ichigo sighed, turning all the way sitting on the edge of his desk. "What'd I do now?"
"I told you — you're being an idiot."
"Gonna have to be more specific, Rukia."
Rukia stepped fully into the office, slamming the door behind her. "I'm talking about how you refuse to tell Yamamoto about how the hollow was able to take control!" She snapped. Ichigo winced, wondering if a closed door would be able to keep Rukia from being heard in the hall.
"Who told you about that?"
"Momo-san." Ichigo rolled his eyes. Of course. No doubt Toushirou had told her. "Seriously Ichigo, are you an idiot? Hang on a sec, I already know the answer to that — of course you are. Let me rephrase that; how big of an idiot are you?!"
Ichigo waited until he was sure Rukia was done ranting before he spoke. "I don't want to be pulled off the front-line."
Wrong answer. "Oh great reason." Rukia's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "And I'm sure when the hollow takes over again and kills us all, Yamamoto will thank you."
Ichigo sighed, dragging a hand through his spiky orange hair. "Rukia—"
"No." She cut him off, her voice filled with venom. "No, all right? You have to tell Yamamoto — if not for me, then at least for yourself. Because if the hollow takes over again and this time actually manages to kill someone, you know you won't be able to live with yourself. For once in your life, please — just think. Because you and I both know too well how badly this could end."
Ichigo shifted his eyes to the wall. Rukia huffed, obviously annoyed. "Ichigo—"
"I can't back down, Rukia. If it was just about fighting for Soul Society, it'd be different. But it's…I can't not fight, not when there are people I care about involved. I have to fight."
Rukia clenched and unclenched her fists a couple of times, looking as if she would very much like to take a swing at the orange-haired captain standing in front of her.
"You don't have to do anything." She was just being selfish at this point, and she didn't care. She'd long since figured out that she was the kind of person who would sacrifice anything for what she wanted, and she'd already come to terms with that. She could live with it, as long as she could get what she wanted. And right then…right then she just wanted Ichigo to be safe.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"How are you?" Momo jumped and looked down. Rukia was standing under the tree branch Momo was sitting on. The brown-haired Shinigami sighed and swung her legs over so they were dangling.
"I hate this." There was a surprising amount of venom in her voice. "I hate not knowing what's going to happen, and I hate knowing that when something does happen I won't be able to do anything to help."
"I know what you mean." Rukia sighed as she settled onto the ground, leaning back against a tree, her legs drawn up to her chest. "But we reap what we deserve, don't we?"
Momo blinked, surprised. "You're amazingly calm about this." Then she became suspicious. "What are you planning?"
Rukia chuckled humorlessly. "Nothing. Trust me, you'd be the first person I told if I was planning something."
They both sighed, looking out at the body of water sprawled before them. They were annoyed, to say the least. It was hard, knowing when trouble came they would be forced to sit back and let nature take it's course.
"What do you think would happen if we did get involved?" Momo asked out of nowhere. "You know, things get chaotic when there's a fight, if we happen to get mixed up in it…"
"Mutiny." Rukia replied at once. "We'd be disobeying orders. You can't accidentally get mixed up in a fight, after all."
Momo huffed, annoyed. "You are amazingly unhelpful." She informed Rukia impatiently. "Of all the people, I figured you'd be able to get creative about this." Rukia didn't answer. Momo sighed. "Okay. I get it. What's wrong?"
Rukia tilted her head back, violet eyes meeting deep brown. "What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Because you should be more outraged about this. You should want to go to Yamamoto and pitch a fit about this ludicrous order. You should not be this calm. The only way I see you being this calm is that you've got something bigger on your mind. What are you thinking about?"
Rukia sighed, closing her eyes. Momo knew that look, knew there was only one thing that could bother Rukia this much.
"You're thinking about what might happen if the hollow takes over again." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah, something like that." Rukia muttered without opening her eyes. "Ichigo refuses to tell Yamamoto how the hollow took over before." Momo knew that already, of course. She was the one who had tipped Rukia off to that small fact. "He just keeps insisting it won't happen again. And he knows it will, but he refuses to be taken off the front-line. He's an idiot."
Momo bit her lip. She couldn't say she understood, because she didn't. Sure, she was worried Toushirou would be killed, but at least that would be the end. To have the one you loved erased, but the body was still there…The thought of it made Momo sick.
"Maybe it won't happen." She said reassuringly. "Maybe he can control it—"
"He can't and you know it." Rukia snapped. "Aizen's presence is a catalyst, it draws the hollow out. Ichigo's being a moron."
"Yeah, but if he wasn't being a moron, he wouldn't be Ichigo, right?" It was a sorry attempt at a joke. Rukia didn't smile. "It'll be okay."
"Yeah. Momo-san, do you believe that?"
Momo didn't answer.
Toushirou leaned back on the railing, crossing his arms over his chest, staring at the starry sky above him. It was quiet, for which he was grateful. He needed the silence, the time to think.
Still, he was glad when he felt Momo's spiritual pressure coming towards him. As nice as being alone was, it still made him uncomfortable to have her out of his sight. He'd been trying to give her space, but hey, if she wanted to come to him, he wasn't about to send her away.
"Needed a place to think?" Momo asked when she arrived. They were, once again, standing outside their childhood home.
"Yeah." Toushirou shifted his eyes to look at Momo. He still couldn't get over the change he saw in her. Her face was…lighter. Freer. Even knowing she couldn't fight anymore, she was more at ease now than she had been in years. Letting go of Aizen had done a world of good for her. And Toushirou liked it. He was happy she could finally be free.
"So." Momo walked over to stand next to him, hopping onto the railing. "What are you thinking about?"
Toushirou looked back at the stars. "Wondering what it'd be like to be a star." He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Momo cock her head, obviously confused. "I mean, you just hang up there for all of eternity. You see everything in the world, and you don't worry about any of it. You're just…free. Completely free of any responsibility and any worry. I wonder what that's like."
Momo half-smiled. "Do you remember what Baa-chan used to tell us?" Toushirou's lips twitched into a smile as well.
"Stars are the people who died before us and are watching over us now." He recited the old words like they were a nursery rhyme.
"I still believed that for years." Momo said, tilting her head up to look at the stars. "After she died, I believed that she was up there watching us, protecting us. It was almost like she wasn't gone."
"When did you stop believing it?" Momo was quiet for a minute.
"After Aizen tried to kill me." She muttered finally. "When I thought he was dead, it was almost comforting, thinking he was up in the stars watching me. So I tried to hold onto it. Then…"
She shuddered. Toushirou scowled. "What about you?" She asked, obviously trying to distract him. "Did you ever believe it?"
"No." Toushirou admitted. "You know me, I was a skeptical child—"
"You're still a skeptical child." Momo teased, poking his arm. Toushirou swatted her hand away, and she smiled.
"Point is, it wasn't really something I could believe in. People who had died still watching over us? It sounds like a fairy-tale. But…" He sighed. "You're right. It was nice, after she died, to think about her up there, watching over us. Maybe I believed it a little then. But eventually we all have to face facts. No one is going to watch us. No one is going to protect us. We're on our own."
When Momo spoke again, her voice was sad. "We're not on our own." She informed Toushirou. "We have each other. We're going to watch over each other. We're going to protect each other. It doesn't matter what the dead do. We're the living — so to speak — and that's what we're going to do."
Toushirou didn't even think as he reached over, taking Momo's hand in his own and squeezing it tightly. She returned the pressure without speaking, and they went back to watching the
"So are you just not going to talk to me now?"
Rukia didn't even bother to look over her shoulder. She was leaning back on her hands, staring idly at the velvety-black, star-dotted sky. "I didn't know you were there."
Ichigo snorted. "Don't give me that crap and don't insult my intelligence. You know perfectly well I've been standing here for the last five minutes. Don't play dumb."
"Well why didn't you say anything, then?"
"I was waiting for you." Ichigo sighed as he walked over to stand next to her, looking up at the sky as well. "I know you're mad at me—"
"You're damn right I'm mad at you." Rukia snapped, cutting him off. "I don't understand what you think you're doing and it's pissing me off."
Ichigo sat down next to her, crossing his legs. He reached his hand to her, and she jerked away. She didn't want to be comforted for God's sake. "Rukia—"
"Just explain it to me. Please? Explain to me what the hell is going on in your head." She sounded almost desperate. "Tell me one — just one decent reason why it's a good idea for you to go out there and risk losing yourself to the hollow again. One reason. That's all I want. And I'll leave you alone about it. I promise."
It took Ichigo a minute to answer. "I already gave you all the reasons I had." He said finally, "I can't back out of this fight because there are too many people I care about involved. I can't leave them to fight on their own."
"What about you?" Rukia's voice sounded tortured now. "Don't you care about yourself? At all?"
"I don't have to." Ichigo cracked dryly. "You do it for me."
"And a lot of good it's doing." Rukia tried, with little success, to cover the pain in her voice with irritability.
"What's it going to take to make you realize I'm not going to die?"
"What's it going to take to make you realize that is the least of my worries?" Rukia shot back. "You're too stubborn to die, I already know that, it's the last thing on my mind. But sometimes there are worst fates then death—"
"Such as losing yourself inside your own head." Ichigo sighed. "I get that. But I'm not going to—"
"Don't say it won't happen, okay? Because it could happen. Very easily. And hearing say it won't just makes it worse. So think of something else to say, or shut up. Because I don't want to hear 'it's not going to happen'."
Ichigo sighed as he fell silent. Of course Rukia was going to be stubborn about it. Stubborn was all she knew how to do.
They stared at the stars for a few minutes, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts. "After my mom died," Ichigo said finally, "my dad told me that she was in the stars, watching us, that when people died, they became stars and hung over us for all of eternity, protecting the people they cared about."
"Heart-warming." Ichigo knew, without looking, that Rukia was rolling her eyes. He was sure nobody had ever said anything like that to her. She hadn't had any parental figures in her life, after all. Nobody had ever comforted her after someone she cared about had died. No one had ever tried to give her any false hope.
"Yeah. Seems stupid to think about now. After everything I've seen—"
"After everything you've seen," Rukia cut him off, "if you still couldn't find it in yourself to hold onto at least one fairy-tale, then you haven't learned much at all."
The words surprised Ichigo. He looked over at Rukia, who was staring resolutely at the sky. "What does that mean?"
"Means we all need a little hope. Otherwise life isn't worth living." Ichigo sensed a bit of a double-meaning behind the words.
"Guess you would know, huh?" To his surprise, Rukia almost smiled.
"Yeah. Guess I would."
Author's Note: Guess what the next chapter is? Go on, guess, guess!
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Did you guess 'the epilogue'? If so, congratulations, 'cause you're right! As you can most likely tell, my inspiration is rather gone for this story, and anyways, the main point of it is kind of done. So why drag it out and make it boring? Therefore, epilogue. And no¸ there will be no sequel. And yes, when it ends, they will still be fighting the war. Because I can't think of a descent way to end that, I'm going to leave that part open-ended. So…review. I'd love you for life if you review. Please? — Sam