so. sorry for the late chapter. there were several reasons. cheefly that I wanted to get this right, and additionally, my creative motor has been waiting as of late. I have one chapter left in the back log and it has most definitely not finished cooking. so updates will be intermittent for now until I get that mojo back to do my once a week pace again.
Rukia found herself resuming her duties. It was only two days after the celebration, but with the thirteenth the way it was, she still felt she needed to keep a close eye on it. Fortunately, much of her lieutenant work was already done by her third seats as they still had their security clearances from before she became their superior.
It was an awkward thing to consider. Kiyone was older than her, and more experienced as a shinigami, as was Sentaro, yet she was chosen to replace her late mentor. It was something that made her wish she could ask her late captain, but that wasn't possible.
Instead, she found herself walking to the training grounds she and Ichigo had been using. They didn't need to go to Sogyoku Hill again yet, and honestly, Rukia wanted to avoid that place as much as possible.
"Yo," Ichigo had already arrived at the training ground, in fact, he was earlier than expected. Rukia usually arrived a good thirty minutes early to get some training herself before teaching Ichigo.
"You're… early," Rukia was quite confused by his early arrival. He usually had quite a busy schedule.
"Yeah, I know, didn't think I'd have so much free time, thought I'd be swamped," Ichigo was going through some stretches, and if the pell's beaten-up state was anything to go by, he had been working on his zanjutsu.
He was also shirtless.
Rukia didn't notice at first, but now that she did, she noticed the scars all over his body, most earned trying to protect her.
The gashes on each shoulder from Zabimaru, a stab wound through the gut from Byakuya striking his soul sleep, a small and faint circle on his right pectoral, most likely from a byakurai, most likely also from her brother, a large slash that clearly demarcated the line between his upper and lower torso from Aizen, and a large scar on his sternum, where she had stabbed him with Sode no Shirayuki on that fateful night.
"You okay?" Ichigo looked over at her. His question snapped her out of her trance as she realized she was staring.
"Yes, I'm fine," Rukia responded quickly after clearing her throat, trying to distract herself from the various momentos of his battles.
"If it's about the scars it's fine, I bet you even have a few of your own," Ichigo's remark couldn't be more accurate. She found herself rubbing her left shoulder, a pale bite mark traced out where she had caught an attack by Fishbone D meant for Ichigo. The three puncture scars from her battle with Aaroniero on her abdomen, one on her torso from her fight in the initial invasion and the resulting thin crisscross of surgical scars proved as such.
"I do," her response was low, he didn't understand how she felt about his scars. Even now, a part of her finds his rescue attempt reckless, and the scars prove that.
"Is something wrong?" Ichigo noticed Rukia was deep in thought, and of her resting expression was anything to go by, whatever she was thinking about wasn't exactly pleasant.
Rukia took a deep breath, then exhaled.
"No," Rukia tried to move forward, she had to help Ichigo learn to control his power.
"You sure?" Ichigo could tell that something was eating Rukia up.
Rukia was silent as she considered how to answer.
"Do you intend on staying, even if you are allowed to return home?" Rukia's question caught Ichigo off guard, falling into thought for a few seconds.
"Honestly, I planed on leaving Karakura if I didn't get my powers back," Ichigo's response surprised Rukia. Karakura was his home, his friends were there, his family was there.
"Why?" Rukia looked puzzled.
"Because Japan hasn't changed in any meaningful way since 1854," sure, the buildings changed, the leader's title changed, and now the Japanese people had far more say then they did under either the shogunates or the Meji-era constitutional monarchy, but the culture hadn't changed one bit. "Why do you ask, you want me to stay?" Ichigo didn't want to have that talk quite yet. It was long, involved, and he probably needed a history textbook to properly explain it.
"At the celebration, Orihime and I talked about you with Rangiku," Rukia slowly walked her way through the conversation, unsure of the proverbial ground she was walking upon. "Orihime said that you may have fallen in love with me."
Ichigo chuckled lightly at that. If she had said that after he rescued her, he would have denied it, primarily because he didn't know it yet. Only after losing his powers did he realize how much her absence in his life hurt.
She was the one who turned his life around, taking it from the melancholy world it had been after his mother's death, and making it so much more vibrant. There was never a boring moment with her around, and if he ever stumbled, she was there to pick him back up and tell him to get back to it.
She made the rain stop.
"Yeah, guess I did," Ichigo scratched the back of his neck as he sat on the ground. Being around her like this, her being the one to usher him here, it almost made the feeling of being uprooted go away almost entirely.
"Listen to you, 'you guess,' you either have or you haven't," Rukia half-heartedly admonished him, but his statement brought relief to her.
"Oi, you're the one who asked," Ichigo retorted. "And who asks that kind of question anyway? 'Have you fallen in love with me?' You sound like someone out of those soap opras Yuzu watches," Ichigo pantomimed Rukia's question as he poked at the way she started the exchange.
Normally Rukia would have responded to Ichigo's prodding, but this time she just found herself laughing. Laughing at how naturally this came to them, laughing at how normal this felt, laughing at how she feels so comfortable around him.
"What's so funny? You fall in love with me?" Ichigo said that not knowing the full scope of the situation.
Rukia paused, her mind lingering on the many ways her life changed after meeting him. She had grown more in these last few years than she ever has in the past fifty. She had actual friends now, both in the living world and Soul Society; she found herself seeing a reason to pursue power, to become stronger, and to attain Bankai herself; but perhaps most importantly, she knew she was loved now. She no longer saw herself as a pariah unworthy of love. She knew she was loved, by her brother, by her friends, and by Ichigo.
"Yes," Ichigo's thought process came to a screeching halt. Those around him would probably swear they heard dial-up noises coming from his head, if they even knew what dial-up sounded like that is.
"Excuse me what?" Ichigo needed to confirm what he heard.
"I have fallen for you as well," Rukia was still finding the situation quite amusing. They were confessing in a training area of all places.
"Oh…" Ichigo didn't really think about this happening. And the thought scared him. Sure there were the usual butterflies of finding out there was mutual interest, but there was also something else.
I shall single out your happiest moment in the coming future…
And kill you then.
Rukia noticed how Ichigo's reaction was dour. How the familiar gloom returned to his face.
"You're not supposed to get depressed at that, it makes a girl feel bad," Rukia tried coaxing it out of him initially by being coy. Mainly as a litmus test for the severity of the situation
"It's fine," Ichigo was very much not fine. But he didn't know how to explain the threat him simply being happy could pose.
Rukia's gaze cut through that lie like a foglamp. She knew something was deeply wrong.
"Ichigo, you're not fine," she walked over and sat next to him.
"No, I'm not," but there was nothing she could do. Nothing she should do.
"Then what's wrong," Rukia wasn't going to let this die. She never did.
The moment stewed as Ichigo delayed. Hoping for Rukia to drop the topic. She didn't, but she also didn't push further. Sitting close to him, allowing her presence to comfort him, but not changing the topic.
Ichigo relented.
"Yhwach said he was going to find the moment I was at my happiest and return to kill me," Ichigo sighed. The only real way for everyone to be safe, to protect everyone, was to be miserable for the rest of his life. He had to be miserable, for everyone's sake.
Rukia wasn't having any of it. She stood up and slapped him across the face.
"And you're going to let him dictate how you live your life?" she stood before him with a face of defiance. The face that always dragged him back from the brink. The face that stopped the rain. "You are going to let him force you to live a life of misery? What happened to the man who would break fate for the sake of saving the ones he loved?"
Ichigo found himself staring into her eyes as she said this. It was like a fire had been lit inside him again.
"You defeated him once, you can do it again," the small woman all but yelled. "Live in defiance of him. Be happy in spite of him. Dare him to return!"
Ichigo smirked.
"You know, this would be the part where I say that the Seireitei can't handle his return right now," Ichigo found himself disagreeing entirely with his counterargument before he could even say it. That was the power Rukia had over him. The ability to stop the rain simply by existing.
"And I would say that your happiest moments lay far beyond today," Rukia smiled as she saw the fire in Ichigo's eyes relit. The very fire that outshone the Sogyoku on the day she had resigned herself to death. The fire that caused her to fall in love with him.
To say Shino Madarame was bored was an understatement. Due to current rules and regulations surrounding the living world, patrolling shinigami had to be rotated out every once and a while, and with the thirteenth as undermanned as it was currently, that meant that sometimes, there had to be gaps in the patrol net.
Shino took a sip of some coffee as she woke up. She had been granted leave for her stay in Soul Society until she had to go back out on patrol. As a junior unseated, she really didn't have much to do at the barracks anyway. So she found herself actually sleeping in her room at home for once. Hell, she even slept in today.
Normally she wouldn't argue with being given leave, but as much wizardry as the lieutenant could pull, with a half-strength division it was inevitable that a district, or a few, would have to go without being patrolled. This reality had been compensated for by shuffling active patrols to cover for priority districts, but eventually, that was going to fail.
In spite of all of her prior planing, right now, Karakura didn't have a shinigami to patrol it. This wasn't a disaster due to the presence of Kisuke Urahara and his eclectic group of shinigami, but it proved to be a problematic statement of how badly the Gotei needed replenishment.
Shino wasn't privy to much of the managerial side of the division, but some simple back-of-the-napkin math could easily tell her that this reality was likely to persist for the foreseeable future unless there was a massive shift in how shinigami were trained and recruited.
And that meant back-to-back deployments.
Fortunately, if the brief was correct, she wouldn't be flying solo this deployment as she was to teach Karin how to do the required fieldwork of a shinigami. Everything from hollow tracking to konso.
Shino was already in her Shihakusho, and getting ready to walk to where she was going to enter the living world. Normally this would be the thirteenth's senkaimon, but given the circumstances, she was instead going to be leaving through the Shiba senkaimon.
After she finished her coffee, she started her walk to the Shiba manor.
The walk over to the Shiba manor itself was uneventful. While it was in the noble district, many of the "transit restrictions" within the seireitei were dropped to facilitate rebuilding. Many of those working on the reconstruction weren't even shinigami. Most were from the Rukon, everyone from skilled laborers such as masons and carpenters all the way down to the grunt workers putting everything in place. It would still be a long time before the Seireitei looked anything like it was before the war, but the fact that there were this many people working on it was a good sign that they may be back to normal operations within the decade.
The added benefit of being able to scout out more people for the academy was a bonus.
Shion knocked on the imposing, yet plain gate to the manor, following a servant in when a small door to the side opened and a servant ushered her in.
The Shiba were an enigmatic family. On one hand, just like the other nobles, they were loaded. Thousands of years of wealth accumulation did that, but they didn't act like they were above those they were above.
Most families try to hide the servants from view. False walls, staff-only hallways and floor plans, the works. The Shiba did no such thing. Shino could see the servants busying themselves with the still ongoing renovations to the manor, they were carrying planks of wood, tools, and other relevant items, though were mindful of her and gave her space as they moved on by. The thing she was most surprised to see though was Shiba members, distinguished by the family crest on their clothing, also assisting.
Shino kept walking though, and soon she found herself in the wing that had the family senkaimon. It was already finished for the most part and she could tell that it was probably the more inhabited part based solely on the noise of conversation.
Soon she found herself among familiar company.
"Hey, Shino, you're coming with us?" That was the voice of Karin calling from down the hallway.
"I'm supposed to be the one teaching you how to do your job aren't I?" Shino's response coincided with her walking up to who was going to be, for lack of a better term, her apprentice.
"Yeah, but can't you just go through the thirteenth's senkaimon?" Karin asked as she led her to the room where everyone was waiting.
Karin was wearing a shihakusho now. She had been given one by the Shiba during her stay, and the slightly shorter girl looked natural in it.
"If you intend to replace Ichigo you need to be familiarized with what we do out there, and my orders are to-"
"Begin your patrol as soon as posible," the voice of Shino's commanding officer startled her. She was not expecting her to be here.
"Lieutenant Kuchiki! I wasn't expecting you to be here," Shino jolted into a quick bow before giving the shorter woman her undivided attention. Rukia slightly chuckled.
"Remember that many of the humans you see here are friends of mine. It would be rude to not be there to send them off, no?" Rukia's soft yet commanding presence stood in stark contrast to her small stature. She then turned to look at Karin. "I know stupidity runs in the family, but please do try to not give Shino as much trouble as Ichigo gave me," Rukia grinned slightly at her own jab.
Karin was preparing to respond when suddenly,
"Hey, I wasn't that bad," Ichigo retorted from across the hall.
"You thought taking a cero to the face was a legitimate way to fight a gillian!" Rukia playfully brought up what she thought was probably the dumbest idea he had at the time.
"It left, didn't it?" Ichigo's retort left Shino speechless. Ichigo, at the very beginning of his work as a shinigami, fought a gillian, and survived. That would put him at high third seat level from the start.
"Quit bickering like a married couple before I start arranging something," Kukaku all but yelled at them to shut up. Though she was quite amused at her choice of words, after all, wasn't she doing that already?
Ichigo and Rukia however, due to the day's conversation, were mortified.
They knew they had caught feeling for each other now, but the thought of acting on them that was implanted by Kukaku's joke? That was something they weren't quite ready to process. As shown by how both of their faces flushed red.
Shino however was aghast at the sheer chaos of it all. This was the residence of a noble clan and everyone acted like it was a madhouse!
Fortunately, the madness ebbed after Isshin made a comment about Lieutenant Kuchiki being his third daughter and provoking Karin and Ichigo. Everyone here really was mad.
Tokinada found himself looking over the horizon as the sun set. The past month had been interesting, to say the least.
He found himself contemplating several major obstacles to his plan.
First and foremost was the delay caused by Kyoraku's little stunt. Of course, there was nothing pointing to his old 'friend' being the one to order the operation, as after all, the Central 46 would have to approve of such an operation. Combine that with heavy visuals department surveillance over the area, the Onmitsukido were really the only group capable of getting the drop on them.
It was impressive and problematic all at once. He wanted to admire Shunsui's clever wit in the situation. Forcing Aura to play her hand in such a manner was inspired, but using the quincy? That was simply masterful!
As the Onmitsukido don't keep any official records of their operations for informational security, any evidence of the corps' involvement would be suspect at best. Throw in the quincy as a catspaw and you have almost ironclad plausible deniability.
The problem was that his old classmate would look at him first. Sure, he could lie to him, he's done it countless times before, but therein lay the problem. The head captain knew how to read him.
Fortunately, until it was proven he was acting against the interests of Soul Society at large, he was still untouchable.
The more pressing problem however was Ichigo.
Sure, bringing him here allowed Aura a lot more flexibility in how she operated. Without Ichigo present, she could focus more on prepping Karakura for the final crescendo of their plan without much more interference as long as she could keep Ishida on the sidelines.
Ichigo represented a much larger problem for him now. In moving him to Soul Society, he placed him within reach of Shunsui and Yoruichi. He needed to insure that the young Shiba stayed out of his way, or else there was no chance of success.
Fortunately, all Shiba had an exploitable, and predictable weakness.
Family.
I hoped you enjoied it, and if you have feedback, please leave it in the comments.