By Any Other Name - 8
More vignettes.
Rate M (or Y) as usual, for safety -- especially given the foot massage. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, it owns me.
A brief discourse on power and gender politics in Soul Society, and why Rukia may be too complicated for some male minds.
Written as a visceral response to certain fanboy hate messages read at various Bleach forums. No flames please :D
Those who master others are strong
Those who master themselves have true power. - Lao Tse
22. Strength versus Weakness
Sometimes it was better to know one’s limit than to think oneself a god.
Still, Rukia wished that people would stop taking her to task for even having limitations. She knew the evil things that were said behind her back when she returned to the stately Kuchiki residence, after her incarceration. She was resting, looking out at the view of the garden when she heard a mere sample of such friendly venom.
“Such a weak girl we had to adopt because of Byakuya-sama,” one relative complained in a loud whisper, as he passed by the hall.
“A disgrace upon our noble house and on the sacred memories of our strong warriors,” another added. “It was bad enough that Byakuya allowed himself to be wounded to rescue her from Gin. But that all this time, she had relied on the goodness of a ryoka to survive in the living world… It’s preposterous. What has become of our pride? That piece of human filth should stop trying to save her all the time.”
They hushed upon seeing Rukia but the words were already spoken. She did not turn around to indicate that she heard them; let them think she was dozing in the sunlight.
Rukia wished that such words had ceased to hurt her, but they still did. She knew she was not weak. She just had a hard time proving it when so many were much stronger than her.
There was not a course in the Shinigami Academy on modern feminism (the school, of course, was set up by a stodgy old patriarch) and no one had thought to educate Rukia on the dichotomy of female stereotypes including martyr/bitch and virgin/whore. Why so many people hated her in Soul Society and the living world, she could not fathom.
She did not realize the scorn came from their ignorance and the inability to see her as a complex individual and not just an inflatable doll.
Comparison was never good for a person’s self-esteem. Her breasts were not big like Orihime; she wasn’t as sweet as Hisana. She wasn’t a prattling magical child like Yachiru nor was she as willing to use devious wiles like Rangiku. Everyone had an opinion, and they were secretly saying that she didn’t exploit herself enough.
Yet when she had a weakness, she was only marked down for a fool.
How could a woman - any woman, for that matter - measure up to these contradictory standards? Of course she couldn’t even begin to compare to the men in her life. If she used her zapankutou she was phallus-obsessed but if she didn’t she was a liability. Her shikai might be graceful but Renji’s had more brute force and Byakuya always won, hands-down, for deadly pink prettiness.
She wasn’t stronger than Ichigo, whom she originally gave her powers to - but then again, Ichigo turned out to be a monster of infinite power. She could never be stronger than him. Ichigo made other men like Kenpachi feel stymied and emasculated, for crying out loud.
Only her kidou was good - even better than Renji and other seated officers, but this did not seem to matter when these dimwitted men made a point of yelling bankai at ear-splitting decibel levels.
Rukia wasn’t going to air these demeaning complaints. To voice them out loud would be to give shape to the shadow of her existence. She was going to banish them and when the time came, she will train again and find her own bankai to shut them all up for good. Her full potential hasn’t been reached yet. They all keep forgetting that. Bankai may come to one person every few generations in one family; suddenly she was glad she was adopted. The possibility lingered in Rukia’s mind that she still had unknown power she had yet to tap. She had all the time in the world to find it.
Hope was the one gift no one could take away from her.
Ichigo knows that power is best in the hands of those who can restrain it.
23. Power Struggle
Ichigo was never bothered that he always had to look out for Rukia. It was just the way things were between them. She never asked him; it was just his base instinct to do it. If it was a debt he had to pay for the rest of his life, and he would pay it gladly with lots of interest.
So he didn’t take too kindly to fools who suggested that Rukia was a pain in the ass and an overestimated fighter, and that no woman worthy of his attention should be impaired with such a martyr complex. From his point of view, Rukia wasn’t a martyr: no martyr could recover from such spectacular injuries as she has. If she didn’t have any resolve, she would have been dead as an infant. Nor was she a bitch: she wouldn’t have bothered with him in the first place if she were truly unkind.
He knew he had to curb his own tendencies to protect her. Renji had taken him to task about it before. Love had a way of messing with his brain and just looking at her everyday - from her delicate ankles and wrists to the peak of her chin - always made him forget she was a trooper.
How could Rukia not have any strength? She gave him the power to choose: save his family or die with them. He had given her the same choice after he saved her - to stay in Soul Society or return to the living world with him. Letting go of her at that moment was the most painful thing he ever did. He could not even go and touch her to convince her otherwise even if he was aching to do so. Ichigo could not dominate her then and take away her choice from her, because it would mean he was no better than her brother or the rules of Soul Society.
When Ichigo thought deeply enough about it, he knew that some of Rukia’s true power stemmed from doing all the superficial nasty things to him with impunity. She was always the exception to the rule. For reasons he kept to himself, he liked to keep things that way, if it gave her the illusion of control.
He knew he had the upper hand in this relationship, anyway. Ichigo just didn’t want to rub it in her face. He learned enough psychology in class to know that a person who struggled under the weight of obligation was the one who was most likely to bite back.
Gratitude is a heavy burden to carry; it creates inequality. During their first months together, he was constantly biting back at her. He was just chafing inside that she had saved his life and his family by turning him into a substitute Shinigami. Rukia had simply ignored his boorishness. So when the tables turned, Ichigo decided to be the bigger person without a fuss.
So now Ichigo did stuff because he secretly liked to keep her happy. Everyone who had a problem with that, they could go fuck their grandfathers.
That’s why he didn’t mind when Rukia kicked him about every time they met. It took a lot of self-control not to hit back and retaliate. He could pulverize her to bits, and they both knew it. It was merely a game of sweet nothings, a public form of violent foreplay. It was part of the clandestine language they spoke that no one else could understand: it had no words, only loud actions.
It can get noisy in Ichigo’s head when both the Hollow and the Old Man give him reasons why a simple foot massage should lead to sex.
24. Age Doesn’t Matter Anymore
Rukia was asleep on his bed again. It wasn’t fair she was curled up in his favorite spot.
Ichigo dropped his bag lightly on his desk and wanted to frown. He wanted to, but he couldn’t, because she looked so exhausted and restful there. It was as if no harm could come to her in this space, she was in a safety zone that protected her from the evils of the world - from Hollows and Arrancar alike, even from the memories she sought desperately to forget.
Ichigo’s room protected her from all these things. He wished, wistfully, that he could protect her from himself.
He sat at the edge of the bed, by her feet. He permitted himself that much. He had the right to watch over her sleep, didn’t he?
It was then he noticed that Rukia had incredibly small feet. He was amazed; she had calluses where her sandals chafed. There were so many spots where the socks failed to protect her. No woman should have such rough soles. Rukia really didn’t take care of herself enough, Ichigo thought angrily.
Absentmindedly, he lifted one delicate foot into his lap and began to massage it. As a child he often saw Isshin do the same for his mother, after a long day of housework and errands around town. It always brought beatific smiles to his mother’s face. Isshin would start with the heels and work his way down to her toes. Unlike Rukia, his mother’s feet were long and elegant.
By the time Isshin finished massaging one foot, Masaki would give his father this warning look and Ichigo would find himself bundled up for bedtime sooner that he could open his mouth to protest.
Ichigo still didn’t understand the blurred line between foot massages and foreplay.
He kneaded the toughened skin, wishing he had some lotion of some kind to soften her feet. Rukia did not wake up despite the rubbing; she seemed to even fall deeper into a very pleasant dream. Her face lost the icy determination she reserved for battle. She looked innocent and vulnerable - just like the teenaged girl she was masquerading to be.
Ichigo wanted to wake her up with a kiss, but he quickly buried that thought. Instead he applied steady pressure to her knotted muscles, working his way do her lower calf.
The voices in his head noticed his motions gliding over her skin and began to babble together with exuberance and much volume. Ichigo closed his eyes to confront them and better hear what the fools had to say to him this time.
“My, my, the King has a foot fetish,” his Hollow crackled merrily, his face multiplied by the reflections in all the mirrored skyscrapers of this world. “I always knew you were a pervert at heart.”
Ichigo bristled as he stood in the center, poised as if ready to be attacked. “I do not have a fetish,” he said hotly. “Rukia’s been on her feet all day, taking care of all the Hollows while I tried to concentrate on my college entrance exams.”
“You know, Ichigo, there is nothing wrong with human desire,” Zangetsu remarked idly. The old man was studying his fingernails while floating upside down. “God knows that I’ve been waiting for you to act upon your more mature sexual impulses for quite a bit of time.”
“I am not going to listen to you jerks. Haven’t you done the math? Rukia’s too damn old for me. It isn’t right.”
“I think it’s you who hasn’t done the math,” the old man retorted. “Your soul is probably just as old as Rukia’s. Have you forgotten the little thing called the reincarnation cycle? You weren’t born in Soul Society, you know. Your soul isn’t new; it’s just been reconditioned. You could have had more human and spiritual lifetimes than her. You will never know; neither will she.”
“Ergo, age doesn’t matter anymore?” Ichigo spat out with disgust.
“That’s right!” Zangetsu beamed. “Coupling with her is therefore acceptable.” For an insane moment, Ichigo thought he was listening to his father.
The Hollow continued to howl in laughter. The white-haired freak was actually holding on to his sides. Ichigo couldn’t believe that the Hollow was agreeing, for once, with Zangetsu. “Come on, now, boss,” he wheedled, his black tongue making obscene motions with his tongue. “Just let me out for a few minutes and she won’t even know what hit her. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll make her beg for it. Then you can take over after the initial… awkwardness.” He snickered. “I can’t promise to be gentle but it will be memorable. She expects me to come out when you finally do her, anyway.”
“No fucking way,” Ichigo thundered. “Go away.”
“Come now, Ichigo,” Zangetsu reprimanded him. “Do you think this is easy for me? I’m the oldest part of your soul - and here I am, trapped in such an infantile vessel, such a poor excuse for manhood.”
“Go away, both of you,” Ichigo repeated. “I’m not going to listen to all your worn out arguments today.”
Ichigo shoved them both into the corners of his mind, both of their hollering and banging on the doors of his consciousness. He shrugged and opened his eyes.
Rukia was awake, looking at him suspiciously. “And what do you think you are doing?” she queried. Her foot was resting on his lap, her wiggling toes dangerously near his crotch.
“Nothing, nothing!” Ichigo said defensively. “You just look like you needed… to relax. Dad used to massage Mom’s feet when she was tired.”
Rukia made a grumpy sound. “If that’s the case… you need to work on the other one.” Grudgingly, she placed her other foot in his hands and leaned back on the pillows expectantly. “I don’t know what you’re doing but it feels really nice.”
Ichigo didn’t put a fight with her unexpected demand for him to continue; he was the one who started this after all.
He began to blush as he massaged her aching muscles. Rukia had a strange, blissful expression on her face. In his naiveté, Ichigo didn’t realize that his hands swept erotic sensations across such an unexpected body part.
His knuckles whitened as he worked upwards, reaching her ankle and lower leg. Rukia was watching him with infinite interest with her eyelids low. At this insane angle he could actually see her inner thighs and a peek at her lacy underwear.
“A little bit higher,” Rukia said, leaning back. “You were right; this is great. I needed this. My legs are killing me.”
I hope, Ichigo thought darkly, that I didn’t start something that I cannot finish.
In the back of his head, he could hear two laughs - one sinister, one mature. They were making fun of him once more.
I often read "reviews are love"... but really, reviews are like TRUE love. It's great when it comes along, but it's hard to hold your breath waiting, you know? XD
Rate M (or Y) as usual, for safety -- especially given the foot massage. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, it owns me.
A brief discourse on power and gender politics in Soul Society, and why Rukia may be too complicated for some male minds.
Written as a visceral response to certain fanboy hate messages read at various Bleach forums. No flames please :D
Those who master others are strong
Those who master themselves have true power. - Lao Tse
22. Strength versus Weakness
Sometimes it was better to know one’s limit than to think oneself a god.
Still, Rukia wished that people would stop taking her to task for even having limitations. She knew the evil things that were said behind her back when she returned to the stately Kuchiki residence, after her incarceration. She was resting, looking out at the view of the garden when she heard a mere sample of such friendly venom.
“Such a weak girl we had to adopt because of Byakuya-sama,” one relative complained in a loud whisper, as he passed by the hall.
“A disgrace upon our noble house and on the sacred memories of our strong warriors,” another added. “It was bad enough that Byakuya allowed himself to be wounded to rescue her from Gin. But that all this time, she had relied on the goodness of a ryoka to survive in the living world… It’s preposterous. What has become of our pride? That piece of human filth should stop trying to save her all the time.”
They hushed upon seeing Rukia but the words were already spoken. She did not turn around to indicate that she heard them; let them think she was dozing in the sunlight.
Rukia wished that such words had ceased to hurt her, but they still did. She knew she was not weak. She just had a hard time proving it when so many were much stronger than her.
There was not a course in the Shinigami Academy on modern feminism (the school, of course, was set up by a stodgy old patriarch) and no one had thought to educate Rukia on the dichotomy of female stereotypes including martyr/bitch and virgin/whore. Why so many people hated her in Soul Society and the living world, she could not fathom.
She did not realize the scorn came from their ignorance and the inability to see her as a complex individual and not just an inflatable doll.
Comparison was never good for a person’s self-esteem. Her breasts were not big like Orihime; she wasn’t as sweet as Hisana. She wasn’t a prattling magical child like Yachiru nor was she as willing to use devious wiles like Rangiku. Everyone had an opinion, and they were secretly saying that she didn’t exploit herself enough.
Yet when she had a weakness, she was only marked down for a fool.
How could a woman - any woman, for that matter - measure up to these contradictory standards? Of course she couldn’t even begin to compare to the men in her life. If she used her zapankutou she was phallus-obsessed but if she didn’t she was a liability. Her shikai might be graceful but Renji’s had more brute force and Byakuya always won, hands-down, for deadly pink prettiness.
She wasn’t stronger than Ichigo, whom she originally gave her powers to - but then again, Ichigo turned out to be a monster of infinite power. She could never be stronger than him. Ichigo made other men like Kenpachi feel stymied and emasculated, for crying out loud.
Only her kidou was good - even better than Renji and other seated officers, but this did not seem to matter when these dimwitted men made a point of yelling bankai at ear-splitting decibel levels.
Rukia wasn’t going to air these demeaning complaints. To voice them out loud would be to give shape to the shadow of her existence. She was going to banish them and when the time came, she will train again and find her own bankai to shut them all up for good. Her full potential hasn’t been reached yet. They all keep forgetting that. Bankai may come to one person every few generations in one family; suddenly she was glad she was adopted. The possibility lingered in Rukia’s mind that she still had unknown power she had yet to tap. She had all the time in the world to find it.
Hope was the one gift no one could take away from her.
Ichigo knows that power is best in the hands of those who can restrain it.
23. Power Struggle
Ichigo was never bothered that he always had to look out for Rukia. It was just the way things were between them. She never asked him; it was just his base instinct to do it. If it was a debt he had to pay for the rest of his life, and he would pay it gladly with lots of interest.
So he didn’t take too kindly to fools who suggested that Rukia was a pain in the ass and an overestimated fighter, and that no woman worthy of his attention should be impaired with such a martyr complex. From his point of view, Rukia wasn’t a martyr: no martyr could recover from such spectacular injuries as she has. If she didn’t have any resolve, she would have been dead as an infant. Nor was she a bitch: she wouldn’t have bothered with him in the first place if she were truly unkind.
He knew he had to curb his own tendencies to protect her. Renji had taken him to task about it before. Love had a way of messing with his brain and just looking at her everyday - from her delicate ankles and wrists to the peak of her chin - always made him forget she was a trooper.
How could Rukia not have any strength? She gave him the power to choose: save his family or die with them. He had given her the same choice after he saved her - to stay in Soul Society or return to the living world with him. Letting go of her at that moment was the most painful thing he ever did. He could not even go and touch her to convince her otherwise even if he was aching to do so. Ichigo could not dominate her then and take away her choice from her, because it would mean he was no better than her brother or the rules of Soul Society.
When Ichigo thought deeply enough about it, he knew that some of Rukia’s true power stemmed from doing all the superficial nasty things to him with impunity. She was always the exception to the rule. For reasons he kept to himself, he liked to keep things that way, if it gave her the illusion of control.
He knew he had the upper hand in this relationship, anyway. Ichigo just didn’t want to rub it in her face. He learned enough psychology in class to know that a person who struggled under the weight of obligation was the one who was most likely to bite back.
Gratitude is a heavy burden to carry; it creates inequality. During their first months together, he was constantly biting back at her. He was just chafing inside that she had saved his life and his family by turning him into a substitute Shinigami. Rukia had simply ignored his boorishness. So when the tables turned, Ichigo decided to be the bigger person without a fuss.
So now Ichigo did stuff because he secretly liked to keep her happy. Everyone who had a problem with that, they could go fuck their grandfathers.
That’s why he didn’t mind when Rukia kicked him about every time they met. It took a lot of self-control not to hit back and retaliate. He could pulverize her to bits, and they both knew it. It was merely a game of sweet nothings, a public form of violent foreplay. It was part of the clandestine language they spoke that no one else could understand: it had no words, only loud actions.
It can get noisy in Ichigo’s head when both the Hollow and the Old Man give him reasons why a simple foot massage should lead to sex.
24. Age Doesn’t Matter Anymore
Rukia was asleep on his bed again. It wasn’t fair she was curled up in his favorite spot.
Ichigo dropped his bag lightly on his desk and wanted to frown. He wanted to, but he couldn’t, because she looked so exhausted and restful there. It was as if no harm could come to her in this space, she was in a safety zone that protected her from the evils of the world - from Hollows and Arrancar alike, even from the memories she sought desperately to forget.
Ichigo’s room protected her from all these things. He wished, wistfully, that he could protect her from himself.
He sat at the edge of the bed, by her feet. He permitted himself that much. He had the right to watch over her sleep, didn’t he?
It was then he noticed that Rukia had incredibly small feet. He was amazed; she had calluses where her sandals chafed. There were so many spots where the socks failed to protect her. No woman should have such rough soles. Rukia really didn’t take care of herself enough, Ichigo thought angrily.
Absentmindedly, he lifted one delicate foot into his lap and began to massage it. As a child he often saw Isshin do the same for his mother, after a long day of housework and errands around town. It always brought beatific smiles to his mother’s face. Isshin would start with the heels and work his way down to her toes. Unlike Rukia, his mother’s feet were long and elegant.
By the time Isshin finished massaging one foot, Masaki would give his father this warning look and Ichigo would find himself bundled up for bedtime sooner that he could open his mouth to protest.
Ichigo still didn’t understand the blurred line between foot massages and foreplay.
He kneaded the toughened skin, wishing he had some lotion of some kind to soften her feet. Rukia did not wake up despite the rubbing; she seemed to even fall deeper into a very pleasant dream. Her face lost the icy determination she reserved for battle. She looked innocent and vulnerable - just like the teenaged girl she was masquerading to be.
Ichigo wanted to wake her up with a kiss, but he quickly buried that thought. Instead he applied steady pressure to her knotted muscles, working his way do her lower calf.
The voices in his head noticed his motions gliding over her skin and began to babble together with exuberance and much volume. Ichigo closed his eyes to confront them and better hear what the fools had to say to him this time.
“My, my, the King has a foot fetish,” his Hollow crackled merrily, his face multiplied by the reflections in all the mirrored skyscrapers of this world. “I always knew you were a pervert at heart.”
Ichigo bristled as he stood in the center, poised as if ready to be attacked. “I do not have a fetish,” he said hotly. “Rukia’s been on her feet all day, taking care of all the Hollows while I tried to concentrate on my college entrance exams.”
“You know, Ichigo, there is nothing wrong with human desire,” Zangetsu remarked idly. The old man was studying his fingernails while floating upside down. “God knows that I’ve been waiting for you to act upon your more mature sexual impulses for quite a bit of time.”
“I am not going to listen to you jerks. Haven’t you done the math? Rukia’s too damn old for me. It isn’t right.”
“I think it’s you who hasn’t done the math,” the old man retorted. “Your soul is probably just as old as Rukia’s. Have you forgotten the little thing called the reincarnation cycle? You weren’t born in Soul Society, you know. Your soul isn’t new; it’s just been reconditioned. You could have had more human and spiritual lifetimes than her. You will never know; neither will she.”
“Ergo, age doesn’t matter anymore?” Ichigo spat out with disgust.
“That’s right!” Zangetsu beamed. “Coupling with her is therefore acceptable.” For an insane moment, Ichigo thought he was listening to his father.
The Hollow continued to howl in laughter. The white-haired freak was actually holding on to his sides. Ichigo couldn’t believe that the Hollow was agreeing, for once, with Zangetsu. “Come on, now, boss,” he wheedled, his black tongue making obscene motions with his tongue. “Just let me out for a few minutes and she won’t even know what hit her. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll make her beg for it. Then you can take over after the initial… awkwardness.” He snickered. “I can’t promise to be gentle but it will be memorable. She expects me to come out when you finally do her, anyway.”
“No fucking way,” Ichigo thundered. “Go away.”
“Come now, Ichigo,” Zangetsu reprimanded him. “Do you think this is easy for me? I’m the oldest part of your soul - and here I am, trapped in such an infantile vessel, such a poor excuse for manhood.”
“Go away, both of you,” Ichigo repeated. “I’m not going to listen to all your worn out arguments today.”
Ichigo shoved them both into the corners of his mind, both of their hollering and banging on the doors of his consciousness. He shrugged and opened his eyes.
Rukia was awake, looking at him suspiciously. “And what do you think you are doing?” she queried. Her foot was resting on his lap, her wiggling toes dangerously near his crotch.
“Nothing, nothing!” Ichigo said defensively. “You just look like you needed… to relax. Dad used to massage Mom’s feet when she was tired.”
Rukia made a grumpy sound. “If that’s the case… you need to work on the other one.” Grudgingly, she placed her other foot in his hands and leaned back on the pillows expectantly. “I don’t know what you’re doing but it feels really nice.”
Ichigo didn’t put a fight with her unexpected demand for him to continue; he was the one who started this after all.
He began to blush as he massaged her aching muscles. Rukia had a strange, blissful expression on her face. In his naiveté, Ichigo didn’t realize that his hands swept erotic sensations across such an unexpected body part.
His knuckles whitened as he worked upwards, reaching her ankle and lower leg. Rukia was watching him with infinite interest with her eyelids low. At this insane angle he could actually see her inner thighs and a peek at her lacy underwear.
“A little bit higher,” Rukia said, leaning back. “You were right; this is great. I needed this. My legs are killing me.”
I hope, Ichigo thought darkly, that I didn’t start something that I cannot finish.
In the back of his head, he could hear two laughs - one sinister, one mature. They were making fun of him once more.
I often read "reviews are love"... but really, reviews are like TRUE love. It's great when it comes along, but it's hard to hold your breath waiting, you know? XD