Bleach: Far From Home, [01/??]
Title: Far From Home [01/??]
Author: Silvia (nightshade_ave )
Fandom: Bleach
Pairing: Ichigo/Rukia
Rating: T for some light swearing, might be bumped up to M later
AN/Disclaimer: Inspired by a specific song this fic is named after. It will be multiple parts, I just don't know how many. I'm not sure if this is a divergence or AU, because while it takes canon as the universe it is set in, the main theory of the story is at best uncertain and worst completely contradictory to canon. I'm sure in the coming months a lot of ideas on this fic will get Jossed, but the idea bit me today so I had to start writing it.
I hope you enjoy, and please leave feedback--even if you hated it. <3
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Ichigo stood silently, his wrists bound together behind his back and a light above his head that felt like it would melt him any moment. He felt that distinct tickle of a drop of sweat running down the back of his neck. It wasn't nervousness; he knew what was coming. As the verdict was read, he wasn't surprised. No, he was not anxious, what he felt was fear. And for good reason. Because even he didn't know what would happen when the sentence was carried out.
He kept his eyes down, not really staring at anything. No, he was lost in memories and filled with regret. Regret that after so much time, he had never had the nerve to make a move on Rukia. He knew in his heart that she cared for him far more than anyone else, and as he stood there now it seemed all the more obvious that she loved him. He was too afraid to mess things up, too afraid of pushing his best friend away that he never bothered to reach for her face, lean in for a kiss. He regretted never taking that chance, now knowing that he would never have it again. He would never hold her close, kiss her jaw, spend even just one night with her. No, he had lost that chance long before any of this happened, because he never had the courage to put his heart in her hands. Which seemed all the more ridiculous now once he realized that she had always held it, and he never had a choice in the matter.
His heart hammering in his chest--was that even possible, since technically soul reapers were dead?--Ichigo kept up a brave face for everyone in attendance. He wouldn't break down, he would face his fate head-on, just as Rukia had done with hers when she was in this situation. He would hold steady, if nobody else then at least he would be the brave face for his friends and family. It was the last thing he could do for them, at any rate.
It was when Rukia screamed that he lost it.
Rage swelled up within him, and while he could hear the uproar of voices, he couldn't discern the individual words. The only thing he heard was Rukia scream his name, and as those faceless guards surrounded her and pulled her from the room, he hated himself more than he hated them for his inability to do anything to help her.
"Rukia!" he lunged forward and called out to her. "You bastards, let her go!" Ichigo himself was surprised at the venom in his voice.
"Kurosaki, don't," Ishida said tersely as he turned to the side to look at his rival next to him.
"Ichigo you idiot, you'll only make it worse for her!" Renji yelled at him from the other side, the lieutenant placing his hands on Ichigo's shoulders and literally shaking him.
Ichigo said nothing, but his eyes burned as he glared at Renji. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He knew they wouldn't hurt Rukia, but the way they had put her hands on her, and how helpless he was, it was enough to make him want to die on the spot.
Too bad the Soul Society was too merciful to put him to death.
Ichigo tore his gaze away from Renji, lest the tears finally did fall. Those tears were about Rukia, were for Rukia, and he didn't want anyone else to see them. Maybe it was a good thing that Rukia was taken from the room, because if Ichigo's worst nightmare came true, he didn't want her there to see it. He didn't want to be remembered as a mindless beast being put down by her brother and their friends.
Ichigo was still in a daze when Ishida pulled on his left arm. "Kurosaki," he said carefully as Ichigo looked up at him. "They're letting Renji and I escort you to the Soukyoku Hill," Uryu said while attempting to keep his face void of emotion. To the outside observer, it was, but Ichigo knew Uryu, and he could see the subtle angle of his eyebrows, the ever-so-slight squint of his eyes that indicated his concern. Renji called over the other members of his squad and Ishida began walking, Ichigo following at his side.
The long walk to the Soukyoku Hill--a quick trip using shunpo but that was not available to him--gave Ichigo time to think. Too much time, but time to reflect on how quickly this whole mess started.
And how exactly it was that he died.
-+-
"What is this?" Ichigo asked as he stared down at his right hand. His fingertips looked faded, like the 'paint' of his skin had peeled away to reveal a semi-transparent Ichigo beneath.
"I was afraid of this," Urahara said solemnly. "I had hoped that you would defy the odds like you've always done, but it looks like your luck ran out."
Rukia glanced from Urahara to Ichigo's hand and back again. Urahara met her gaze and continued, "The human body can withstand a certain degree of spiritual pressure. However, it was not made to house a captain-class spiritual pressure for years. Most gigai can barely handle it, even with the gentei kaijou seal." Urahara paused. "Quite simply, Ichigo, your body cannot handle the pressure of housing your soul and is slowly disintegrating." There was a thick feeling to the air when the shopkeeper finally finished with the only information that mattered at this point: "You only have about three days left to live."
That day, Ichigo returned home to tell his family the news. Isshin wasn't very shocked, but still extremely sad. Yuzu started crying, and even Karin teared up a bit. There was nothing any of them could do, but enjoy what time they had left. Ichigo spent that first day with his family, mostly talking to his sisters and imparting every bit of brotherly advice he could. After his sisters had gone to bed, Ichigo stayed up late talking with his father. And when he was finally too exhausted to stay awake any longer, he wandered to his room to collapse into sleep in his bed. Rukia watched him sleep from his windowsill.
The second day, Ichigo gathered his closest friends to tell them what was going on. Orihime broke out in tears, and buried her face into Uryu's chest. Tatsuki punched Ichigo in the arm and called him an asshole for making Orihime cry. Chad's eyes met with Ichigo's for a brief moment of understanding before he turned his head to hide his eyes behind his bangs. Keigo tried to make a joke about having nobody to go see the upcoming movie "Bad Shield 3" with, and Mizuiro looked uncomfortable. Ichigo didn't blame him; Mizuiro was never the comforting type.
After Orihime dried her tears, the group went back to her apartment. They ordered take-out and sat around talking about the highs and lows of their lives. They shared plenty of laughs, a few tears, some angry moments, and even a bit of high school gossip. Near midnight, they finally decided they needed to go home. After everyone felt they had sufficiently said goodbye, Ichigo told them not to worry, and reassured them all that they would see each other again.
Ichigo had already started 'flaking' away in his face and more than half of his body was transparent. Rukia wanted him to see Urahara, because it seemed like things were going faster than Urahara had said. Ichigo shook his head, "He wasn't sure this would even happen in the first place. If he had an exact number, he would have told me."
As the pair walked back to Ichigo's home along the river, Ichigo stopped. Rukia was too scared to speak when he suddenly turned to face her. "Rukia," he paused a moment, "will you stay with me... until the end?"
She nodded and he stepped over the guardrail and walked down to the riverbank. Rukia followed after, and the pair sat in the grass on the riverbank and stared up at the stars. Sometime after 1am, Ichigo felt like he couldn't breathe. He looked to his side at Rukia and gasped. She called out his name in worry, and everything went black.
Was it a few seconds, a few minutes? Ichigo didn't know, but eventually he opened his eyes to see the darkened sky above surrounding Rukia's face as she leaned over him. After staring into her eyes for a moment, it finally hit Ichigo. He placed his right hand on his chest and sighed, closing his eyes in the process.
Ichigo was dead.
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They were almost at the top of Soukyoku Hill, and time was running out. Ichigo trudged along behind Ishida and was followed by Renji and a contingent of 'guards' from the sixth division. As if Ichigo could do anything at this point, bound by a high level bakudo that enabled him to do nothing but walk, and even that was difficult.
Ichigo had no time in the Soul Society before Renji came to pick him up. He and Rukia had just passed through the senkaimon into the Seireitei; it was Ichigo's first time with a hell butterfly leading the way. Renji was clearly distressed, but calmly explained he had orders to take Ichigo into custody. There would be a hearing, he explained, to decide what to do with Ichigo since he was such a powerful soul reaper but was not assigned a division and had not graduated the academy. Initially the head captain wanted him arrested and thrown into jail in the second division, but Renji had convinced the old man to let him keep Ichigo under watch in his own barracks (though he suspected his captain, Byakuya, may have put in a word as well), and the head captain had agreed. Rukia and Ichigo parted, but Renji had assured them it was just a weird procedural thing they had to go through. Everything would be fine.
Unfortunately Renji didn't know he had been lied to.
Back when Ichigo had stormed the Soul Society to rescue Rukia from execution, Ishida had fought Captain Kurotsuchi of the twelfth division. Kurotsuchi did something to Uryu that had allowed him to spy on him; Ishida had never explained the details to Ichigo clearly. What Ichigo did know, was that Kurotsuchi was able to see what happened on the top of Las Noches in Hueco Mundo, when Ichigo fought Ulquiorra.
Just thinking of that event made Ichigo's stomach lurch.
After Aizen was locked away, Kurotsuchi took his findings to the head captain, Captain Yamamoto. That footage prompted the hearing, which was less of a hearing and more of a condemnation. Because Ichigo didn't have the training of the Visoreds, because he didn't even have the basic training soul reapers received in the academy, and because he had lost control of his inner hollow and still managed to survive, he was a threat to the Soul Society. He was a threat to everything and everyone in it. And it didn't matter what anyone thought, because it only took the head Captain's decree to condemn Ichigo to death.
Many captains protested, and finally the sentence was changed. Ichigo, who had done so much for the Soul Society, would not be executed. However, he was still too dangerous to let run loose. His sentence then, would be the sealing of his soul reaper powers and banishment to Hueco Mundo. He couldn't stay in the Soul Society, the human world was off-limits, and obviously the royal realm was out of the question. That only left Hueco Mundo.
As they positioned Ichigo on the top of Soukyoku Hill, the captains surrounded him in a circle. Captain Yamamoto again went over the sentence. Captain Kurotsuchi prepared a garganta, and several members of the kido corps had already started their chant. They would seal his power and kick him into the void, the garganta leading to Hueco Mundo. Would he die in the garganta with no way to navigate? Would he arrive on the other side only to be a monster trailing blood across those desolate white sands?
There was a time, after Aizen's defeat, that Ichigo lost his soul reaper powers. He had sacrificed them in order to use Mugetsu, his final technique that took so much power it sucked his identity out with it. This was different; they weren't going to take his soul reaper powers; even the mighty Soul Society couldn't do that. They were going to seal them, with kido so powerful it had been forbidden for two thousand years. Ichigo supposed he was good at getting the Soul Society to break their traditions from the moment Rukia stabbed him in the heart.
Rukia. He was thankful she was not here to see this. No, he didn't want her last memories of him to be that of a monster. Ichigo didn't fear death, he feared becoming a hollow. He feared that thing that had stabbed Ishida with his own sword and torn Ulquiorra into pieces. He feared that descent into madness and the destruction that might follow. The Soul Society was prepared for that; after all they had all thirteen captains (and several vice captains) surrounding him in a circle should things go wrong. Ichigo laughed bitterly in his mind; if things went wrong? Weren't they already wrong?
The kido corps finished their chant, and Ichigo felt a bolt of lightning to the chest--or at least what he thought one would feel like. He screamed in pain; it felt like his heart was being ripped in half inside his chest. He had no time to analyze the agony, as he felt something push and something else pull, he heard a scream and everything faded black. The last thing he saw was a speck of white light as he fell away from it, the last time he would ever see the Soul Society.
And his soul fell into the pit of darkness.
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Author: Silvia (nightshade_ave )
Fandom: Bleach
Pairing: Ichigo/Rukia
Rating: T for some light swearing, might be bumped up to M later
AN/Disclaimer: Inspired by a specific song this fic is named after. It will be multiple parts, I just don't know how many. I'm not sure if this is a divergence or AU, because while it takes canon as the universe it is set in, the main theory of the story is at best uncertain and worst completely contradictory to canon. I'm sure in the coming months a lot of ideas on this fic will get Jossed, but the idea bit me today so I had to start writing it.
I hope you enjoy, and please leave feedback--even if you hated it. <3
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Ichigo stood silently, his wrists bound together behind his back and a light above his head that felt like it would melt him any moment. He felt that distinct tickle of a drop of sweat running down the back of his neck. It wasn't nervousness; he knew what was coming. As the verdict was read, he wasn't surprised. No, he was not anxious, what he felt was fear. And for good reason. Because even he didn't know what would happen when the sentence was carried out.
He kept his eyes down, not really staring at anything. No, he was lost in memories and filled with regret. Regret that after so much time, he had never had the nerve to make a move on Rukia. He knew in his heart that she cared for him far more than anyone else, and as he stood there now it seemed all the more obvious that she loved him. He was too afraid to mess things up, too afraid of pushing his best friend away that he never bothered to reach for her face, lean in for a kiss. He regretted never taking that chance, now knowing that he would never have it again. He would never hold her close, kiss her jaw, spend even just one night with her. No, he had lost that chance long before any of this happened, because he never had the courage to put his heart in her hands. Which seemed all the more ridiculous now once he realized that she had always held it, and he never had a choice in the matter.
His heart hammering in his chest--was that even possible, since technically soul reapers were dead?--Ichigo kept up a brave face for everyone in attendance. He wouldn't break down, he would face his fate head-on, just as Rukia had done with hers when she was in this situation. He would hold steady, if nobody else then at least he would be the brave face for his friends and family. It was the last thing he could do for them, at any rate.
It was when Rukia screamed that he lost it.
Rage swelled up within him, and while he could hear the uproar of voices, he couldn't discern the individual words. The only thing he heard was Rukia scream his name, and as those faceless guards surrounded her and pulled her from the room, he hated himself more than he hated them for his inability to do anything to help her.
"Rukia!" he lunged forward and called out to her. "You bastards, let her go!" Ichigo himself was surprised at the venom in his voice.
"Kurosaki, don't," Ishida said tersely as he turned to the side to look at his rival next to him.
"Ichigo you idiot, you'll only make it worse for her!" Renji yelled at him from the other side, the lieutenant placing his hands on Ichigo's shoulders and literally shaking him.
Ichigo said nothing, but his eyes burned as he glared at Renji. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He knew they wouldn't hurt Rukia, but the way they had put her hands on her, and how helpless he was, it was enough to make him want to die on the spot.
Too bad the Soul Society was too merciful to put him to death.
Ichigo tore his gaze away from Renji, lest the tears finally did fall. Those tears were about Rukia, were for Rukia, and he didn't want anyone else to see them. Maybe it was a good thing that Rukia was taken from the room, because if Ichigo's worst nightmare came true, he didn't want her there to see it. He didn't want to be remembered as a mindless beast being put down by her brother and their friends.
Ichigo was still in a daze when Ishida pulled on his left arm. "Kurosaki," he said carefully as Ichigo looked up at him. "They're letting Renji and I escort you to the Soukyoku Hill," Uryu said while attempting to keep his face void of emotion. To the outside observer, it was, but Ichigo knew Uryu, and he could see the subtle angle of his eyebrows, the ever-so-slight squint of his eyes that indicated his concern. Renji called over the other members of his squad and Ishida began walking, Ichigo following at his side.
The long walk to the Soukyoku Hill--a quick trip using shunpo but that was not available to him--gave Ichigo time to think. Too much time, but time to reflect on how quickly this whole mess started.
And how exactly it was that he died.
-+-
"What is this?" Ichigo asked as he stared down at his right hand. His fingertips looked faded, like the 'paint' of his skin had peeled away to reveal a semi-transparent Ichigo beneath.
"I was afraid of this," Urahara said solemnly. "I had hoped that you would defy the odds like you've always done, but it looks like your luck ran out."
Rukia glanced from Urahara to Ichigo's hand and back again. Urahara met her gaze and continued, "The human body can withstand a certain degree of spiritual pressure. However, it was not made to house a captain-class spiritual pressure for years. Most gigai can barely handle it, even with the gentei kaijou seal." Urahara paused. "Quite simply, Ichigo, your body cannot handle the pressure of housing your soul and is slowly disintegrating." There was a thick feeling to the air when the shopkeeper finally finished with the only information that mattered at this point: "You only have about three days left to live."
That day, Ichigo returned home to tell his family the news. Isshin wasn't very shocked, but still extremely sad. Yuzu started crying, and even Karin teared up a bit. There was nothing any of them could do, but enjoy what time they had left. Ichigo spent that first day with his family, mostly talking to his sisters and imparting every bit of brotherly advice he could. After his sisters had gone to bed, Ichigo stayed up late talking with his father. And when he was finally too exhausted to stay awake any longer, he wandered to his room to collapse into sleep in his bed. Rukia watched him sleep from his windowsill.
The second day, Ichigo gathered his closest friends to tell them what was going on. Orihime broke out in tears, and buried her face into Uryu's chest. Tatsuki punched Ichigo in the arm and called him an asshole for making Orihime cry. Chad's eyes met with Ichigo's for a brief moment of understanding before he turned his head to hide his eyes behind his bangs. Keigo tried to make a joke about having nobody to go see the upcoming movie "Bad Shield 3" with, and Mizuiro looked uncomfortable. Ichigo didn't blame him; Mizuiro was never the comforting type.
After Orihime dried her tears, the group went back to her apartment. They ordered take-out and sat around talking about the highs and lows of their lives. They shared plenty of laughs, a few tears, some angry moments, and even a bit of high school gossip. Near midnight, they finally decided they needed to go home. After everyone felt they had sufficiently said goodbye, Ichigo told them not to worry, and reassured them all that they would see each other again.
Ichigo had already started 'flaking' away in his face and more than half of his body was transparent. Rukia wanted him to see Urahara, because it seemed like things were going faster than Urahara had said. Ichigo shook his head, "He wasn't sure this would even happen in the first place. If he had an exact number, he would have told me."
As the pair walked back to Ichigo's home along the river, Ichigo stopped. Rukia was too scared to speak when he suddenly turned to face her. "Rukia," he paused a moment, "will you stay with me... until the end?"
She nodded and he stepped over the guardrail and walked down to the riverbank. Rukia followed after, and the pair sat in the grass on the riverbank and stared up at the stars. Sometime after 1am, Ichigo felt like he couldn't breathe. He looked to his side at Rukia and gasped. She called out his name in worry, and everything went black.
Was it a few seconds, a few minutes? Ichigo didn't know, but eventually he opened his eyes to see the darkened sky above surrounding Rukia's face as she leaned over him. After staring into her eyes for a moment, it finally hit Ichigo. He placed his right hand on his chest and sighed, closing his eyes in the process.
Ichigo was dead.
-+-
They were almost at the top of Soukyoku Hill, and time was running out. Ichigo trudged along behind Ishida and was followed by Renji and a contingent of 'guards' from the sixth division. As if Ichigo could do anything at this point, bound by a high level bakudo that enabled him to do nothing but walk, and even that was difficult.
Ichigo had no time in the Soul Society before Renji came to pick him up. He and Rukia had just passed through the senkaimon into the Seireitei; it was Ichigo's first time with a hell butterfly leading the way. Renji was clearly distressed, but calmly explained he had orders to take Ichigo into custody. There would be a hearing, he explained, to decide what to do with Ichigo since he was such a powerful soul reaper but was not assigned a division and had not graduated the academy. Initially the head captain wanted him arrested and thrown into jail in the second division, but Renji had convinced the old man to let him keep Ichigo under watch in his own barracks (though he suspected his captain, Byakuya, may have put in a word as well), and the head captain had agreed. Rukia and Ichigo parted, but Renji had assured them it was just a weird procedural thing they had to go through. Everything would be fine.
Unfortunately Renji didn't know he had been lied to.
Back when Ichigo had stormed the Soul Society to rescue Rukia from execution, Ishida had fought Captain Kurotsuchi of the twelfth division. Kurotsuchi did something to Uryu that had allowed him to spy on him; Ishida had never explained the details to Ichigo clearly. What Ichigo did know, was that Kurotsuchi was able to see what happened on the top of Las Noches in Hueco Mundo, when Ichigo fought Ulquiorra.
Just thinking of that event made Ichigo's stomach lurch.
After Aizen was locked away, Kurotsuchi took his findings to the head captain, Captain Yamamoto. That footage prompted the hearing, which was less of a hearing and more of a condemnation. Because Ichigo didn't have the training of the Visoreds, because he didn't even have the basic training soul reapers received in the academy, and because he had lost control of his inner hollow and still managed to survive, he was a threat to the Soul Society. He was a threat to everything and everyone in it. And it didn't matter what anyone thought, because it only took the head Captain's decree to condemn Ichigo to death.
Many captains protested, and finally the sentence was changed. Ichigo, who had done so much for the Soul Society, would not be executed. However, he was still too dangerous to let run loose. His sentence then, would be the sealing of his soul reaper powers and banishment to Hueco Mundo. He couldn't stay in the Soul Society, the human world was off-limits, and obviously the royal realm was out of the question. That only left Hueco Mundo.
As they positioned Ichigo on the top of Soukyoku Hill, the captains surrounded him in a circle. Captain Yamamoto again went over the sentence. Captain Kurotsuchi prepared a garganta, and several members of the kido corps had already started their chant. They would seal his power and kick him into the void, the garganta leading to Hueco Mundo. Would he die in the garganta with no way to navigate? Would he arrive on the other side only to be a monster trailing blood across those desolate white sands?
There was a time, after Aizen's defeat, that Ichigo lost his soul reaper powers. He had sacrificed them in order to use Mugetsu, his final technique that took so much power it sucked his identity out with it. This was different; they weren't going to take his soul reaper powers; even the mighty Soul Society couldn't do that. They were going to seal them, with kido so powerful it had been forbidden for two thousand years. Ichigo supposed he was good at getting the Soul Society to break their traditions from the moment Rukia stabbed him in the heart.
Rukia. He was thankful she was not here to see this. No, he didn't want her last memories of him to be that of a monster. Ichigo didn't fear death, he feared becoming a hollow. He feared that thing that had stabbed Ishida with his own sword and torn Ulquiorra into pieces. He feared that descent into madness and the destruction that might follow. The Soul Society was prepared for that; after all they had all thirteen captains (and several vice captains) surrounding him in a circle should things go wrong. Ichigo laughed bitterly in his mind; if things went wrong? Weren't they already wrong?
The kido corps finished their chant, and Ichigo felt a bolt of lightning to the chest--or at least what he thought one would feel like. He screamed in pain; it felt like his heart was being ripped in half inside his chest. He had no time to analyze the agony, as he felt something push and something else pull, he heard a scream and everything faded black. The last thing he saw was a speck of white light as he fell away from it, the last time he would ever see the Soul Society.
And his soul fell into the pit of darkness.
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