Author's Note: I was rewatching a few episodes of Kill La Kill for its 10th anniversary... and I thought why not do a crossover with Bleach. For Ryuko's side, this story is set a while after the end of Kill La Kill. For Ichigo, he's starting off more angsty than he was in canon, but his moodiness won't last very long. Similar with my other stories, sexual themes will be integral to the plot and world building, specifically Kill La Kill's magic system with the Life Fibers is more sexual in this story.
Ichigo buttoned up his uniform jacket, slotted the coat hanger into the closet, and glanced at a padlock. His secret compartment in the wall. It was for a safe, but he wasn't about to spend money on one, though he ought to, given what was inside. A while had passed since he had undid that dusty lock. Days, months, it felt like many years.
Sighing, Ichigo pulled the curtains. His eyes slowly adjusted to darkness as his thumb pressed miniature keys.
One. One. Five.
Eleventh of May. The day his life had changed. The day in which a crazy samurai cosplayer had so brazenly strolled into his bedroom, through the goddamn window, right in front of his nose. Now, years later, it all could be mistaken for one strange addictive nightmare. Inside this compartment was all he had to prove it had happened, that he wasn't a lunatic teen boy. The panel in the wall slid aside with a hard shove.
Two items.
One, his Substitute Shinigami Badge—a wooden pentagon with a painted black skull.
Two, a glossy cut-out photo, two inches tall, snug in a frame of his own craftsmanship. The photo was the only one he had of her, Rukia Kuchiki, a spirit, a Shinigami, from Soul Society, who had lived in this very closet for three months while powerless. She was real. This low-resolution class photo was absolute proof of her existence. Was she smiling in the photo? She had a dumbfounded look, as though not sure what to do, because she didn't in this moment, never having been in a school photoshoot before. The Human world was alien to her.
She didn't belong here. For the past seventeen months, he had repeated these four words to himself. She didn't belong here.
Better to forget about her.
Better to burn this photo.
He couldn't do it. He locked the panel and headed out.
The school day passed without incident, as usual.
Until now.
"You miss her, don't you?" Keigo Asano asked in an almost mocking tone.
"Shuuut up," Ichigo drawled.
Keigo laughed. "You were thinking about her just then. You always have that sad look on your face when you do."
"I told you to shut up. I wasn't thinking about Rukia, dumbass."
A blank look tilted Keigo's face. He quipped, "Who mentioned Rukia? Not Keigo Asano."
Annoyance bit Ichigo's stomach, and his arm swiped a brick then lobbed it before he could restrain himself. The stone oblong, brown-red like dried blood, was spinning on its long axis while flying in front of the afternoon sun. Over and over it tumbled, only to be stopped by Keigo's bare palm, easily caught and placed aside.
A dozen awkward seconds passed, then Keigo said, "That brick weighs over twenty pounds."
"Yeah, so?" Ichigo shrugged. But inside, relief cooled his lungs. That brick could have done serious damage to a window. Or a skull.
"You chucked it one-handed."
Ichigo sighed. "You caught it just fine. One-handed. And don't say my powers are returning—they're not. I've been exercising at the park with those dumbbells Chad bought me."
"Ah, thought so," Keigo said, wisely not pushing that subject again. Though he did try the other one: "So you were thinking about Rukia, eh?"
"Shut it. Last warning." Ichigo looked away, over treetops and empty basketball courts. It was last period, and he was skipping class again, hiding out on Block C's rooftop, but it wasn't really hiding in any sense. Everyone knew this was Ichigo Kurosaki's favorite slack-off spot, his territory. Years ago the school administration had tried to keep him from coming up here out of safety concerns, and they had failed. Their compromise was a mesh safety barrier, which ruined the view. Now this place was more of a caged-in prison than an open and free tower. He didn't know why he came here anymore. Habit.
"Rukia—"
"Keigo," Ichigo warned.
"Rukia visited Urahara's last week."
Cold electricity jolted up Ichigo's spinal cord. His expression remained uncaring. "It's not unusual for one Shinigami to meet another. Especially here. Don't barge in on their business."
"Alright, thought you'd want to know."
"I don't care."
"How can you say that? She's your friend."
Ichigo dodged: "How do you even know this? You better not be shitting me again."
"Oh, um…." Keigo rubbed the back of his head. "Your sister was—"
"Which sister?"
"Karin. She was at Urahara's, something about her spiritual training, and she saw Rukia leaving. Karin told us all but made us promise we wouldn't tell you."
Ichigo huffed. "I guess you broke a promise. To my sister of all people."
"I didn't promise her. Sudden bowel cramps, had to leave the room, you know."
"Right," Ichigo dismissed, but he was thankful. He didn't say it, but he was indeed thankful. He didn't stop himself from saying, "Do you know if she asked about me?"
"No," Keigo said softly.
"Yeah, I doubt it too." Seventeen months and not a single friendly visit. Not even a letter. Just gone.
Ichigo stood, walked on, tripped on the brick, and would have fallen over the edge if it weren't for the safety mesh. Galvanized metal was harsh against his skin. Old cracked concrete below would be worse. It was a long fall. It brought back a horrific, exhilarating memory of when he had been afraid of death. He was no longer afraid.
Ichigo stared at the ground below for over a minute until Keigo's hand on his shoulder guided him away.
Ichigo waited for his bus.
There had been a time when he soared over Karakura Town from east to west in the blink of an eye. Three months of training in Jinzen had earned him unrivaled speed and strength, but now this power was a dissipating memory. He could hardly recall that madman's face and those monstrous transformations. Chuckles escaped his lips as he pictured the last form. Tentacles galore. Ridiculous.
"Huh? Nah, I'm not laughing at you," a young woman said into her cellphone, her voice smooth and carefree. "It's some weird guy. He might be drunk or something."
She was shorter than average, about five-foot-three, not in the midget zone, but Ichigo had almost mistaken her short messy black hair for someone else's. Her face was strong and sharp, but her blue eyes held an at-peace softness—very much like someone else's. To him, the resemblance was there. To anyone else, they would have to squint through a glass of water. More and more often, Ichigo was seeing Rukia's face around town. This young woman could be a relative. A distant cousin, perhaps.
She frowned. "He's staring at me. I think he wants something. No, I'm fine. Talk to you later, Mako." She put away the cellphone, into her skirt's back pocket. Her skirt was pleated denim, ending two-thirds the way down her slim thighs. Her skin was pale, flawless, glowing under the dimming sun. She could show off more skin, that baggy windbreaker jacket not complimenting her cute sexy figure at all. She would look nice in a bikini.
Her chin lifted as she said, "Hey, I'm Ryuko Matoi. You want something?"
It took him a moment to find his voice: "Hi. Hi, I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. I don't want anything, I'm just looking." The first blush in years heated his face. "I mean, I'm just looking out for my bus, I'm not looking at your body, even though it looked like I was looking at your legs, because I was just looking at that big crack in the sidewalk behind you. It could be unsafe for elderly, you know? The council should do something about it, don't you think?"
She had smiled partway through his ramble. She started giggling, a few lovely breaths. "You're right, it is unsafe for old-timers. My grandmother fell down stairs once. I still blame the janitor for slacking off."
"Oh, sorry to hear that," Ichigo said mechanically. "Is she okay now?"
"Nah, it killed her." Ryuko waved away his concern. "It's no big deal. I wouldn't go on a vengeful crusade against that janitor. That's not my style." The way she said that was hinting an inside joke. She flipped hair out of her eyes. A strip of hair was bright red. As red as blood. And, he noticed, her pupils were oddly shaped, rigid and non-circular—hexagons with little stubs extruding from the verticies. Her eyelashes fluttered. She said off-handedly, "It's genetic."
"What?" he blurted.
"My eyes. They're not contact lenses. It's genetic. Same with your bright orange hair, yeah? Or do you dye it?"
He used to take offense to such a question. He shook his head, smirking, running fingers through his hair. "Nope, it's one-hundred-percent natural. It comes from my mother. She's also dead, by the way, but it's no big deal. I wouldn't go on a vengeful crusade either, because my dad already got to it."
Ryuko's laughter at that was a bit off, not in a weirded-out way. "What happened?"
"A Hollow ate her. Know what that is?"
Her eyes widened. Her cogwheel pupils dilated slightly. "I do know."
"Really? Can you see them?"
"Oh yeah," she said with zealous intensity. "I kill them all the time." Suddenly a pair of red scissors was in her left hand. She snipped twice.
It was his turn to laugh. "You're not going to kill a Hollow with those little flimsy scissors, trust me, Ryuko."
"You'd be surprised." Her eyebrows shrugged. "Hang with me tonight. If a Hollow drops by, I'll show you."
He was beginning to suspect she was the stereotypical crazy girl. Her twitchy eyes were a total giveaway. But something about her communicated immovable confidence, as though she really did slay Hollows all the time with those tiny red scissors. Well, it may be possible. She could be similar to Chad and Orihime. Come to think of it, she could be exactly like Orihime.
And so Ichigo shrugged, saying, "Sure, why not?"
"Then it's a date, Ichigo Kurosaki. You better not chicken out."
He hit her with his trademark scowl. "Do I look like someone who chickens out? Look at me, and look at yourself."
Her pretty pink lips puckered as her eyes dipped. "What about me?"
"You're not much taller than my thirteen-year-old sisters. Did you skip school today? I don't think I've seen you around before."
Gaze wandering left and right, Ryuko whistled a quirky tune. "You should know I'm twenty-eight. I'm a full-time tailor, I'm taking some time off to travel. You don't have to apologize, I get that all the time. It's genetic—the rare and lucky youthfulness gene."
He coughed in embarrassment. "Oh."
"Still down for tonight?" she asked in a quiet voice, less confidence in her stance now. "Hey, it's cool if you don't want to. Besides, I doubt your dad would be fine with you chatting up a girl almost twice your a—"
"I'm down, and don't bother with what my goofball dad and sisters think. In a year I'll be eighteen, basically the same age as you." Adult age.
"You sure?"
"Really, it's fine, you're acting as if you're a hundred years older than me. Ten years is nothing."
"Alright then," Ryuko said, passing him a card. "My number's on the back. Meet me at the fried chicken place at seven-thirty. Know where it is? By the bowling alley."
"Yeah, I've been there before." A few times with Chad and the others.
"Great, see you later. I've got some errands to run." She walked off, her hands in her jacket pockets.
He didn't want the conversation to end yet. He called, "Weren't you waiting for a bus?"
"Nah," she said over her shoulder, "missed it cus of you. So you better not chicken out tonight!"
"I won't!"
She turned around the corner. Then she was out of sight. Gone.
Ichigo fidgeted with her business card. It was plain, name on the front, number on the back. Cursive gold font on a textured bone-white background. No address. No mention of her profession either. The cardboard had a scratchy texture against his fingernails, streaky, fibrous, not unlike the fabric that suits were made of. The minimalistic design was interesting, to the say the least, but what did a schoolboy know about business?
Ichigo pocketed the card and held out his arm when the bus chugged down the road.