Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Tite Kubo does.
IMPORTANT A/N: To anyone who read Chapter 13 (Betrayal) right when it was updated and hasn't read it since, I revised the end of the Aizen/Gin exchange that happens toward the end of the chapter a few days ago. It more-or-less completely shifts Aizen's M.O. to make it fit with a plot idea I came up with; basically, the change is that instead of saying he'll crush Ichigo, Sosuke wonders how long it'll take Ichigo to realize that the only place for someone like him is by his (Aizen's) side. I hope that explanation made sense.
Okay, now on with the story!
Torn
Chapter 15: Guinevere
"You are holding back, Ichigo Kurosaki," Byakuya ground out as he caught his breath, blood dripping down slowly from a gash in his forehead.
"Why?"
Ichigo whipped his white sword down sharply, causing the blood to fly off of the end and splatter down onto the ground.
"Why do you think, Byakuya?" he shot back, his white jacket sporting a gradually widening burgundy stain as dark blood spread out from a wound caused by the cold steel of Senbonzakura. "If I went all-out, you'd be a pile of body parts on the ground. And seeing as how you're Rukia's brother and all, I doubt she'd take that very well."
Kuchiki's steely eyes flashed.
"You still maintain to possess concern for her, brat?"
"Of course I do, you idiot," Ichigo snarled. "Why do you think I left with Aizen in the first place? I had to learn to control my Inner Hollow to keep from hurting Rukia, that's why!"
Byakuya's frown deepened, and he raised Senbonzakura once again.
"Do not use Rukia as a smokescreen to obscure your own shameful weaknesses, you bastard. Scatter, Senbonzakura."
Ichigo bit back a sigh as he weaved and dodged around the multitude of pink blades, the speed of his bankai augmented even further by the Hollow powers it had gained from his subjugation of Hichigo.
"You're getting emotional, and it's making you sloppy," the orange-haired Soul Reaper observed in a scathing tone as he vanished and reappeared again and again in a whirlwind of flash-steps. "This isn't just about me being a 'traitor', is it? There must be some other reason why you're fighting so hard, Byakuya."
"You think this is me exerting myself, boy?" the Captain spat. "You should know better than that."
The blades of Senbonzakura doubled in speed as Byakuya began using and hand to direct them, threading the streams of razor-sharp fragments through the surrounding buildings and using them to pick up pieces of debris to hurl at Kurosaki, hoping to throw him off-balance. Ichigo sidestepped a roof tile with an almost cocky amount of grace, and was about to yell at Byakuya to stop wasting time and call out his bankai when the brown-eyed warrior realized why the Captain had kept one hand free.
"Bakudo number 61: Rikujokoro."
The six rods of light slammed into Ichigo's abdomen a fraction of a second before he could flash away, pinning him in place.
"Shit…!" he swore, trying to break out of the kido only to have Kuchiki's calm voice call out to him and halt his efforts.
"Do not struggle, you filth," Byakuya said sharply. "It will only make you die faster once I bring my full might to bear upon you, and I desire to prolong your agony as punishment for your transgressions." The Captain recalled his shikai, turning his blade to point down to the ground before letting it go.
"Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi."
Ichigo's yellow and black eyes narrowed in seething, sharply-focused fury. There was no way in hell he was going to be quartered like a slab of meat by a storm of pink blade shards while he stood here paralyzed. Gripping two of the beams of light currently confining him, the Soul Reaper channeled as much raw reiatsu into his hands as he could, ripping the kido to shreds mere heartbeats before the tempest descended.
Hurling a Getsuga Tensho at the swarm, Kurosaki watched in grim satisfaction as it sliced right through the attack and kept going, forcing Byakuya to switch from offense to defense in order to block the crescent of black energy. As Ichigo's strike tore through the last layer of defense, Kuchiki flashed away and reformed his zanpakuto from the myriad shards before charging the orange-haired Soul Reaper once again.
Kurosaki could read his movements like an open book, however, and tagged the Captain with a slash across his sword arm. Not deep enough to sever it, but enough for it to hurt like hell. Byakuya reflexively let go of his zanpakuto as the pain surged from his forearm down into his hand, and before he could blink the white blade was at his throat.
"Kill me," he spat, but Ichigo just shook his head, his yellow eyes cold.
"Why should I?"
"Because I would rather be dead than see Rukia ruin her life by tying it to a human like you, Ichigo Kurosaki."
Those unearthly yellow eyes thawed and widened in surprise, before returning to their normal brown as Ichigo relinquished his bankai.
"Ah," the Soul Reaper said, with a touch of bitterness creeping into his understanding tone. "So that's what this is about. You couldn't give two shits if I was a traitor, Byakuya. This is about me being a human. What, do you think I'm weak just because I'm not a 'real' Soul Reaper?!" he half-snarled, but to his surprise the Captain's reply was a soft one. Pushing the blade away from his jugular, Kuchiki made no effort to draw his own as he spoke.
"You are not weak, Ichigo Kurosaki," he said. "If there is one thing you are not, it is spineless, or frail. You have defeated me not once, but twice on the field of battle; you have proven your might more times than many of the warriors I have met or have yet to meet. But none of this changes one very crucial thing about you:
"You are mortal."
Ichigo's expression shifted to one of something approaching sympathy as he slammed his sword into the ground; Byakuya had a story to tell, and he was going to listen. He had to understand what had made this man hate him so much, had to reconcile with him, or Byakuya would be an obstacle between him and Rukia for as long as he could breathe.
Which would be a very, very long time.
"You are mortal, Ichigo Kurosaki," the elder Kuchiki continued. "You will age, you will wither, and you will die a human's death, broken and pitiful and wasted. And when you come to Soul Society, you will forget everything about Rukia Kuchiki. And when this happens, if she has given you her heart, it will die with you.
"But she will not. She will live on, a soulless, empty husk pining every moment of every day for the happiness that was all too fleeting, that happiness that she will never experience again because of you. And I cannot let that happen to her, Kurosaki Ichigo. I promised myself, and I promised another who was very important to me, that I would not let that happen."
Ichigo was silent for several moments, but when he finally spoke, his voice formed a question.
"Who was she?"
Byakuya was surprised for a few heartbeats, but found his voice again soon enough.
"What did you say?"
The orange-haired Soul Reaper just sighed.
"The only person I've ever heard talk like that is my father, and that's only because he lost someone who meant the world to him, someone he loved. So who was she, Byakuya? Who did you fall in love with? Who left you?"
The Captain closed his eyes and sighed, as if he was pulling a lifetime of buried memories up to the surface. Eyes still closed, he began his story.
"Her name was Hisana," he spoke, his voice laced with something that seemed so out of place Ichigo had trouble figuring out what it was until he realized that it was the same tone of voice his father had always used when he had spoken seriously about his mother, usually next to her gravestone.
It was the voice of someone who had loved and lost, and never truly recovered. It was the voice of a broken heart.
Kurosaki listened to the story in silence, from their first encounter to his fight against the Kuchiki Clan elders to their eventual marriage and years of bliss.
Until the day Hisana's illness finally claimed her, and she left Byakuya forever. That day she left, taking a piece of his heart with her that the Captain would never be able to reclaim.
"I know how it feels, Ichigo Kurosaki," Kuchiki continued, and Ichigo could tell that his story was coming to a close. "I know how it feels to watch someone you love slip inexorably away from you, powerless to do anything to stop it. I know how it feels to live every single day afterwards as something less than what you were, a pale shadow of your former self. I am intimately familiar with that pain, Ichigo Kurosaki,
"And I would gladly die if it meant saving Rukia from that torment."
The brown-eyed Soul Reaper sighed heavily, feeling nothing but sympathy for the warrior before him.
"Even if that would break her heart? Even if that would leave her alone, a 'pale shadow of her former self'?"
"She would be fine," Byakuya insisted. "She is strong."
"So are we, Byakuya," Kurosaki replied, "and neither of us are fine."
There was a pause between the men that approached something like an amiable silence, broken by Ichigo's steadfast, determined tone.
"I'll make you a deal, Byakuya," he said. "We bury the hatchet, for Rukia's sake. She needs you as much as she needs me, in a way that I could never provide for her. If we keep fighting like this it's only going to ruin Rukia in the long run, and that's something neither of us wants."
"And you think you have the strength to keep her safe, Ichigo Kurosaki?"
The orange-haired Soul Reaper gave a melancholy smile, extending his hand.
"You give me your word, I'll give you mine."
Byakuya raised a tired hand and clasped Ichigo's, his eyes burning with an inner fire that belied his outward shape.
"If you break Rukia's heart, Ichigo Kurosaki," the Captain said gravely, "I will avenge her with all of the strength in my being."
"Right back at you," Ichigo said with a smile as he let his hand drop, preparing to flash away.
"I'm glad we finally understand each other, Byakuya," the orange-haired Soul Reaper spoke in parting as he picked up his sword and vanished. When he was alone once again, the Kuchiki Captain sighed.
"Surely," he spoke to no one in particular, "that boy does not intend to keep calling me by my first name."
A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update this chapter, but both a paper and writer's block conspired against me; I couldn't figure out how to write this scene for the longest time, until I decided to not write it like a fight and more like an honest, no-holds-barred exchange between these two people explaining why they feel the way they do in regards to Rukia. Some of you might decry this as being rampantly OoC on the part of Byakuya, but I couldn't think of another way to write this exchange that worked nearly as well. Besides, Ichigo and Byakuya have a lot more in common than they would like to admit, and I wanted to bring that to the surface. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review, and I'll try to get the next part up faster.