A/N: Thank you for any and all reviews, favorites, and follows, as well as all you other readers out there!
Bleach and all products thereof are copyright to Tite Kubo, et al.
Friday, February 14, 2003
It was sometime later when Rukia stood up fully and looked up at Ichigo with a finally-controlled smile. "I'm happy for you," she said quietly.
He nodded back with a similar smile. It was then that they both became fully aware that their hands were still firmly clasped together and let go out of embarrassment at the same time, moving away from one another.
Rukia was immediately shocked at how the moment she let go of Ichigo's hand his reiatsu just completely disappeared, like it had never been there at all. "Have you—have you been learning to control it?" she asked. She was pretty good at channeling her own reiatsu, but she had never seen anything like that before.
Ichigo just shook his head at her, an odd look on his face.
She tilted her head at his expression and poked his jacket-clad arm with one finger, feeling nothing, before poking his hand, feeling it instantly roar around her. She was almost knocked off her feet by the sudden force and Ichigo had to catch her to keep her from toppling over.
"Careful!" he said, then, "Reiatsu jamming only stops on direct skin contact."
"'Jamming?' Is this one of the things you're promising to explain?" she asked testily, peering at him as if she could see through him.
"Yes!" he replied with a conviction that made her stop and look up at him. He looked back at her with an unusual intensity and she could feel one of the final pieces of a puzzle fall into place in her mind. Somehow, it had been Ichigo that had been holding whatever it was that produced the mysterious reiatsu discharge, and the missing reiatsu had been used to jump-start his powers again. Presumably, whatever he was desperate to tell her would give her the last remaining pieces.
She easily pulled out of his grasp and moved to his left side, dryly stating "I'm only doing this for the sake of my investigative report and because it really creeps me out to know your powers are there but I can't feel them." She regarded him with a serious, half-lidded expression that dared him to question her.
"Eh?" Ichigo responded, not getting what she meant.
She took a moment to steady herself before deliberately taking his left hand into her right one, feeling his power surge out around her. She easily suppressed the little heat on her cheeks at the contact, which was nothing compared to the shade that flashed across Ichigo's face. She pointed at him with her free hand, scolding "Don't be so juvenile, I just explained it to you!"
"I—I'm not being juvenile!" he snapped back.
Rukia stuck her tongue out at him and started walking, saying "Come on, you promised to tell me everything." Ichigo had no choice but to follow. Each in their own worlds, if connected ones, they made their way together in content silence to a café so he could explain to her what exactly it was he'd done.
Continuing the game of holding hands became truly awkward once they were seated at the café, and doubly so once the wait staff and other patrons took notice, but Rukia found she liked it both for how incredibly embarrassed and pliable it made Ichigo, and for other reasons she would never admit to anyone. Ichigo had become sensitive to every word she said and she knew that for once she wouldn't have to use violence or even the threat of it to get him to speak up.
After hemming-and-hawing for a short while over their orders, Ichigo visibly calmed himself and asked simply "What do you know already?"
"You tell me," Rukia said flatly, propping her free arm's elbow on the table and resting her chin on her hand with an expectant look. She wasn't going to let him weasel his way out of explaining anything.
Ichigo blew out a breath and began to relate to her what had happened. It took less work than he imagined it would to relate the events of the week, and he had gotten through it all in about five minutes.
Rukia's expression didn't change once during the tale. When at last he had finished she had just sighed and said "So…you're an idiot."
"Come on!" Ichigo protested.
"What exactly is the United States anyway?" Rukia asked suddenly.
"Are…are you for real?" Ichigo responded with complete disbelief, before adding "America, it's America!"
Rukia blinked, and looked off to one side in thought, only sort of familiar with the place through some pop-culture. "Oh, Hollywood!" she said at last, before looking at Ichigo suspiciously, "What would they want with a face like yours?"
"Not Hollywood, idiot!" Ichigo said, face-palming with his free hand. He stopped himself and took a deep breath. "So you know that the Living World is divided up into states, right?"
"Yes," said Rukia. She had received some instruction in geography during her time at his school.
"And Japan is only one of these?"
"Yes."
"So, there are around 200 states, and out of them, America is the 4th largest, has the 3rd most people, the biggest economy, and far and away the most powerful military." It had been almost impossible to escape news about what seemed to be a looming war in Iraq, especially since their State of the Union the week prior, and so that final point was currently being driven into the ground.
"Okay."
"Japan, in comparison, is 62nd, 10th, and 2nd, and basically relies on the American military for defense in several regards," Ichigo concluded.
"Okay."
"Haven't you ever thought it was weird Soul Society only seems to have people of Japanese ancestry in it?" Ichigo whispered, looking at her strangely.
"…No," Rukia said. Now that he was pointing it out like this though it was pretty odd.
"Rukia," Ichigo said, his tone suddenly much more serious and grave, "this guy, Alan, knows everything. Everything…" He looked her dead in the eyes, and she could see the worry that was in his. "He knew about Aizen, Zero Division, the Visored, the Espada, Yamamoto-sōtaichō, Kaien-fukutaichō, you, me…he even knew I like Shakespeare!"
Rukia frowned involuntarily at hearing Kaien's name but put it aside, along with asking who Shakespeare was, and continued to listen.
"If there was anyone in this world with the ability to bring my power back, it was these people. And they did…with that gun." He squeezed her hand seemingly subconsciously at reference to that.
Rukia had known Ichigo long enough to guess what he was thinking and she could tell he was actually kind of scared. Not for himself, but for everyone else. And she could also tell that he had done what he always did: looked for a way to protect everyone else and once he found it, leapt for it while only maybe thinking of the potential consequences to himself.
As far as she was concerned his integrity was beyond reproach, and his intentions were noble, but they were once more in the thick of it because of how he'd done things. She had no idea what the Americans might want from him, nor what the Gotei 13 would think of his actions. "Fool," she whispered, absent-mindedly squeezing his hand back.
He looked at her and she held his gaze equally as neither said anything for a moment, both thinking.
"So the necklace you're wearing is what's hiding your reiatsu?" she asked at last.
"Yeah," he replied.
"Why not take it off?"
"You're the only one other than him that knows," he said. She felt here was something else, but whatever it was he didn't say it.
"You know I have to report this to the Gotei 13," she said with a note of sadness. It went unsaid that once she did, everyone would know, and so there was no point in hiding it.
"I know" he replied, looking down at the table. She had known he wouldn't ask her not to.
"Ichigo, I…" Rukia began, when suddenly Ichigo's cell phone began to ring, stopping her. Ichigo tried to ignore it but after the fourth ring he fished it out of his pocket. She could tell from his expression upon seeing the number that it had something to do with all this. He looked at her meaningfully before he flipped it open.
"Yeah?" Ichigo said into it. Whatever was said to him from the other end made his eyes snap toward the phone. "How do you know—but…What?" he sputtered. Ichigo closed his eyes before taking the phone away from his ear and holding it out to Rukia, opening them again to look directly at her as he said "He wants to talk to you."
Rukia took the phone as if handling something that might break, watching as Ichigo turned to look dejectedly at the floor. She brought it up to her ear. "Moshi moshi," she said with forced sweetness.
"Don't be mad at him," a baritone voice said from the other end.
"Would you prefer I be mad at you, Alan Hayward?" she replied, her voice suddenly cold as ice. She saw Ichigo start out of the corner of her eye and shot him a look to calm down.
"No, Kuchiki-dono, I would prefer you make your report to your superiors promptly," he said. She didn't like what sounded like amusement in his voice.
"I fully intend to," she replied coolly, keeping her eyes on Ichigo.
"Good, I will be going with you tomorrow morning at 0730 to help you do so, along with Ichigo. Urahara has already been informed. I trust you can secure a Hell Butterfly so we don't have to run through the Dangai?"
Rukia was so stunned by the man's presumptuousness that all she found she could say was "Impossible!"
"That's unfortunate, I think the Kōtotsu will be active tomorrow," the man replied as if she had spoken literally with what seemed like sincere if mild disappointment.
Rukia found that in this moment, despite her many years of living under the Kuchiki clan's rules and all the instruction in etiquette and manners she had received from the same, she could only just barely restrain herself. "What are you playing at?" she grated into the phone with deadly seriousness, Ichigo momentarily forgotten.
The voice on the other end became equally serious. "It's completely understandable that a fukutaichō would not have been informed of the 1946 Treaty of Friendship and Understanding established between Central 46 and my government. I have been informed that of the members of the Gotei 13, Yamamoto-sōtaichō is likely the only one with full awareness of its contents and possibly even its existence. Needless to say, as an officially sanctioned representative of the United States government regarding such matters, and with Ichigo Kurosaki as my current immediate subordinate, I am invoking my diplomatic right to an audience with the Gotei 13 as provided within the Treaty to testify at your briefing." There was a short pause, then: "You may ask Ukitake-taichō to relay this to them for verification if you think I'm lying. Please hand the phone back to Ichigo."
Rukia found herself glaring at the phone before becoming aware of where she was again. She set it down on the table and slid it over to Ichigo, withdrawing her hand from his and crossing her arms over her chest angrily. The sudden void in front of her no longer bothered her quite so much as she simmered, and she looked out the window to her left.
Ichigo had cringed at that, and whatever was being said to him, she didn't know. She didn't even bother to look at the expressions on his face to try and figure it out. For his part, he didn't say anything until finally letting out an "Eh?" as the call was clearly ended. It was then that he turned to his right, likewise staring out the window, as if looking for something. There was silence for a moment until she heard him rasp out in disbelief and fury "Unbelievable...! That bastard, I'll kill him!"
Rukia blinked and turned her head slightly to see where he was looking, catching an expression of incredulous, incandescent rage on his face, then followed his gaze to see a man in a strange blue suit and a woman in a white parka walking across the street. The man said something to the woman and gestured in their direction before both turned and waved at them. The woman looked happy, but at the same time had the most mischievous glint in her eyes. It was quite a look to be seen from such a distance. Rukia had no idea that the woman was Ikumi Unagiya.
For the moment neither caring about nor comprehending Ichigo's volcanic hatred, Rukia pulled out her denreishinki and composed a shorthand message to her taichō reading "forward central 46 request verification existence '1946 treaty of friendship and understanding' diplomatic rights." She looked at it for a moment before hitting send. She sipped the remainder of her tea while Ichigo calmed down, neither of them saying anything to the other. Not even two minutes had passed when a message returned that read simply "central 46 verifies."
"We should go," she said to Ichigo. The one-time Shinigami Daikō asked for the check without complaint, and after he paid for the two of them they left together.
Rukia let Ichigo walk her back to the Urahara Shop with nary a word exchanged between them on the way there. They were closing in on it at last when she exhaled and said "I'm not mad at you."
"I know," he said. It had the air of a simple statement of fact.
"It's just, whatever this is actually about is a lot bigger than just you," she continued warily.
"I know," he said again, this time more pensive.
She looked at him then, her glance drawing his, and they found themselves staring at each other in the dirt lot in front of the Urahara Shop.
Ichigo looked away first, rubbing the back of his head "Did he say when we were supposed to be leaving?"
"He said 'tomorrow morning at 0730' so I guess that would be 7:30 AM," Rukia said.
"Tch, slave-driver," Ichigo complained.
Rukia could practically see him adding it to a mental list of grievances he had with Alan and laughed at the expression on his face. Ichigo blinked and looked back at her, smiling involuntarily at the sound. Rukia smiled back. "So I gathered that guy we saw was Alan, but who was that women with him you were so mad about?"
Ichigo's face faulted only marginally at being reminded of what had happened. "My boss," he said grudgingly, before looking askance, "Unagiya Ikumi. She's been taunting me about Valentine's Day for weeks. She likes to act like a big sister, it's weird."
Rukia smirked at the idea of him having a big sister and began "So," as she put it together, "Your new boss asked your old boss out on a date and spent it making her think she was watching you confess your true love?" She had slipped back into something approaching her schoolgirl voice toward the end of the delivery and swore she could almost see steam spiraling out of Ichigo's ears.
"Sounds like it," he replied, his tone conveying fully that he didn't want to think about it.
"Oh, I bet he excused himself to make a call, and she saw our reactions without knowing it was him calling us!" Rukia said aloud as it struck her, before looking at Ichigo "She probably thought you totally blew it." She then held up a finger as a second possibility hit her: "That or maybe she was right there as he did it! Can you imagine?!" It was unlikely given the content of what he'd said, but perhaps he'd have been able to play it off as some kind of joke. He had seemed like that type to her. She started to understand then why Ichigo had been so annoyed, even though she didn't know the woman and had only spoken to the man on the phone. It was like a veritable conspiracy against them!
Ichigo just sighed as if the weight of the world was suddenly upon him, and she could indeed imagine he knew all too well the taunting he would receive on Monday, and every day there after, for as long as he worked at Unagiya Shop.
"Ichigo," Rukia said gently to draw his attention. He looked at her directly to find her smiling once more. "I had fun today, despite it all. Thank you," she said.
The teenager nodded and smiled back, "I did too."
Rukia looked up at the sky for a second as if in thought, saying "Hey, if that Ikumi woman teases you and says you messed it up…" She trailed off and reached her hands up to Ichigo's shoulders, pulling him forward enough that she could lean up and kiss him on the cheek, her grip bracing her against the brief storm surge, "…you tell her you got a kiss goodnight." Rather than linger on what effect it would have on him, she let go and turned, heading toward the shop. Her own heart was pounding. Why did I do that? Why did I do that?!
"Rukia," Ichigo belatedly called. He sounded strangely composed.
She didn't turn around, refusing to betray herself. "Yes?"
"Everything's going to be fine," Ichigo said. He said it with a degree of certainty she had only heard from him a few times.
"Goodnight, Ichigo," she said softly, continuing on toward the Urahara Shop.
Ichigo watched her until she had opened and closed the door before heading home. He punched his dad out of his attempted ambush and interrogation without saying a word, going upstairs. He set the box of chocolates on his desk and crashed onto his bed, exhausted. Rukia was not in any better state at the Urahara Shop. Despite needing to be up early the next morning, neither found it easy to fall asleep that night.