Archive 'fic: Canute and the Waves (IchiRuki contest 'fic, Theme 2)
I'm finally getting around to getting these up here. Oh 2007, starting as a year of organization! Let's see how long that lasts. :)
This is the version that went up on ichi_ruki. It didn't place in the contest, but I'm rather proud of it anyways.
Theme
Outside, confidence is king
I am all that you're projecting
Inside, feel the rising time
And the revolution's deafening
I. Soul Society
It’s too much pressure
I’ll only let you down again
The night before they go to the living world, Rukia stays in the 13th division barracks. She has not slept well in the Kuchiki house since her brother's pre-mission report, and she had hoped her old room among her old comrades would help her rest. It does not; she finds herself staring at the thin crescent moon in the sky instead, finding more rest in that than behind closed eyes.
“Report,” Captain-General Yamamoto says. His face glows in the moonlight.
She is kneeling before him on a cushion of silk. Though her back is to them, she can see how the others are arrayed behind her: the chosen team flanking her sides, the Captains and Vice-Captains gathered behind them. She holds her sword across thighs.
She keeps her eyes on her sword as Hitsugaya speaks. It looks as if it is halfway between sealed and released: the guard is round, but there is black on the blade. She frowns. Her sword should be sheathed. Her sword should be sealed. Her sword should be--
Why is there black on the blade?
Hitsugaya is succinct; he finishes his report before her next thought has time to form.
Yamamoto nods. “Very well,” he says. Then his eyes shift to her. Something cold wells in Rukia’s breast. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she realizes everyone has turned towards her. They are all looking at her.
“And the boy?” Yamamoto says, voice like the grave.
Rukia raises her head. Her chest is icy. The cold within crackles, takes shape without. She reaches into the folds of her kimono and finds what has formed.
She pulls it out and lifts it before the assembly, her fingers firmly tangled in his--its--orange hair. They do not touch the mask.
“Taken care of,” she says. Her voice is a whisper, but everyone can hear her. Everyone knows what she has done.
Yamamoto smiles kindly. “Very good,” he says, voice soothing. “Very, very good, Kuchiki-san. That is one problem dealt with.”
A drop of black blood falls from the severed neck, landing on her blade.
II. The Streets of Karakura
(No, I am not open parts of me are broken)
This is not how it happened in her head.
One moment, she’s taught Ichigo that he no longer fights alone. She has tested the killing edge of her blade in this world of thick air and not found it wanting. She has saved him from a death he could not deliver.
The next, she’s wrenched into the air by a sneering, blue-haired monster. He balances her on his wrist like a plate on a stick, his fingers caressing liver, intestines, as if testing their merits. He sneers again and they fail, she fails, and all together, fall.
She was chosen for her speed, she thinks. Why, then, was she so slow?
Why did they always have to cut Ichigo out, as if culling a prize from the herd, by butchering those who stood around him? How could he learn that way? They were...teaching him...the wrong...thing...
She hears Ichigo’s cry in the shape of her name as she strikes the ground.
Her head smacks against the pavement. Sparks blot her vision, and she holds her head steady until her vision clears. She forces herself to sit up, one hand covering her belly to keep her guts from spilling out. But there is no wound, and the sounds of battle have vanished.
Her brother stands over her, sword in hand.
“Nii-sama?” she says.
“Rukia,” he says.
Their eyes meet for a moment.
Rukia pulls herself into a kneeling position, and bends her head to touch the pavement. “This one is very, very sorry, Kuchiki-sama,” she says, voice stiff with frustration. “This one has failed to prove herself again.”
He is silent for a long moment. Then, “Rukia.”
“Yes.” She keeps her head down.
“Raise your head.”
She does, but does not meet his eyes.
Another moment. His blade slips under her chin, point against her throat. The cold touch raises her head until her eyes settle on his.
“This is not failure,” he says.
He pulls back the sword and plunges it into her belly. For a moment, there is no pain, just warmth; then the pain blossoms. Not sharp, just an ache, slow-spreading, unfurling, settling under her skin as if it belongs there.
“This is not failure,” he says.
He eases the blade from her, flicks the blood from its tip. Some of it spatters against her face.
He raises the sword and places the point against her heart. She can still smell her blood on the icy metal.
“Here there is failure,” he says. “In the division that cannot be mended.”
“Nii-sama...”
“It is one thing you share,” he says, blade tip parting cloth and skin. “A divided heart.” The blade skids between bone, pauses, angles up, and slides in farther. She shouldn’t be able to feel this, but she can: the point whispering through muscle and tissue, delicately parting the folds of her heart. It is not pain, it is--null, as if each bisected beat were bleeding off the sensation.
“His division has always been,” he says, as the blade comes to rest on her back ribs. “Your division has not, but you take his and add it to yours. As if they were the same.” He changes his grip on the sword. “They are not, Rukia. Two wounds together do not make a whole.” He punches the blade out through her back. “Your scars must be your own.”
“Nii-sama,” she manages again.
He drops the blade, and it stays, fast through her heart. “That is the failure you share.”
III. The Kurosaki House, part one
Sometimes you put all of your desires in an object of affection
But in time because you idolise there is only disappointment
After the night she’s had, Rukia doesn’t feel like sleeping. One does not tread the path of death lightly, even if one is Death. Fighting, healing, walking home with an Ichigo turned so inside he was almost concave--all of this should have tired her out. It has left her keyed up instead. So she sits in the window of the girls’ room and watches the play of white city lights along the clouds, and does her best not to think.
The stream runs silver with salmon that day--young fish, vigorous and lively. But they are young too, and come away with a decent catch. Cooked and cleaned, the fish sit between them, bordered by an arrangement of filched rice.
“He loves you, you know.”
She glares daggers at Renji as she stabs a piece of fish. “Who does?” she asks. Stupid statements deserve stupid questions in return.
He carefully picks up his own piece. “Ichigo.”
She pauses, then takes a delicate bite. The flesh melts to salt in her mouth. She swallows and says, “That’s idiotic.”
Renji shrugs, chews, swallows. “Not for me to pass judgement.”
“Except it is.” There is conviction in her voice.
Renji raises one lined eyebrow, and she can’t help but feel that the tattoos on his face belong to a much older man. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?” she asks, voice rising.
He points at her with the chopsticks. “Not when you’re in that uniform.”
She looks down at herself and finds, to her surprise, that she is dressed as a shinigami. She touches the short sleeve of the Captain’s haori, the scarf at her neck, the kenseikan in her hair, and looks at him with wide eyes. “I’m Kuchiki.”
“Yup.” He picks up another piece of fish. A drop of grease lands on the blue of his uniform, and he brushes at it in annoyance.
She blinks, then says in a voice more fitting, “Then it is even more foolish to suggest such things.”
“That he loves you?”
“That he would dare.”
Renji looks at her, then begins to choke. He coughs and hacks and gasps, and she would reach for him except that he is beneath her. Finally he spits out the offending piece of meat and drops it in the grass, where it immediately takes root. He looks at her, eyes watering, and grins.
“What?” she demands, voice not quite imperious enough.
“You’re acting like he’s about to show up beneath your balcony and start reciting badly composed tanka about, oh, the spread of your hair or the sweep of your sleeve. You’re acting like he knows.” He leans back a little, still grinning in that foolish way.
“Shouldn’t he?”
Renji shakes his head. “Ichigo doesn’t know things, he does things.”
“And others explain it later,” she says.
“You got it.”
She shakes her head. “I wish I didn’t.”
His look turns exasperated. “What’s so wrong with it, Rukia?” He toys with the rice, chopsticks teasing grains instead of scooping them. “He’s not the only one.”
“I know.” She looks down and fiddles with the cloth of her hakama. The fish has made her belly ache. “You all are fools.”
A moment of quiet. He sighs.
“Don’t you remember?”
“Remember what.” Her voice is flat.
“No one thinks of you the way you think of you. Idiot.” His voice is almost gentle.
She looks up at him now. “And that’s why you are fools,” she says simply.
She takes another piece of fish and bites carefully into it. The flesh is bitter on her tongue.
IV. The Kurosaki House, pt. 2
I was trying to hide my opposing side
Trying to reconcile my Jekyll and Hyde
Ichigo has not come back, and she is waiting for him.
The night is cool, the moon bright. She waits on the roof because it’s the best tactical point: she can see in every direction, so no matter how he comes home, she’ll know it before he arrives. It’s quieter up here, too, without the strange aura of power that permeates the Kurosaki house.
She keeps to her feet at first, pacing the corners of the roof, alert. As the night wears on, she sits and concentrates on feeling out his reiatsu. It comes and goes now, a black spike with a blue core on the map behind her eyes. She wishes she could track it, but it’s too diffused, and she knows what she’s sensing isn’t in real time, but an aftershock. That she could track, but the diffusion bothers her; it means someone’s put up a barrier. A strong one. And there’s only one man in this town who could do something like that.
The thought should cheer her. It does not. Nothing is ever that simple.
The wait is long, but she doesn’t think she will sleep. Not even sitting like this on the roof, against the bricks, head tilted up to the moon. Not even with her eyes closed, searching the dark. Not even...
Footsteps. Not on the roof, but the susurrus of sandals scraping air. A black wave comes with the sound--not the rush and crash of high tide, but the white speckled ebb of low. She knows by that who has come to her, and her only thought is, It was my push that brought this. I should see what I shoved against.
She opens her eyes.
The figure stands in shadow despite the moon above. It looks more like Ichigo than she expected, with only a few subtle differences : a white shinigami uniform beneath a crooked grin beneath black eyes. His grin widens, as if he can see her confusion. She sits up, raises her chin, and says in her best Kuchiki voice, “Hollow.”
“Rukia.”
Her eyes narrow. “Do not address me in the familiar.”
He tilts his head to the side. “He does.”
“You are not him.”
He studies her for a moment, then shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
He steps from the air onto the roof. The movement is too fluid. “That you know better.”
She forces herself to stay still. “I do not accept that.”
He cocks his head. “Does that comfort you?” he asks.
She has long thought of him as “it,” but this close, she can’t hold the pronoun; she can’t look at his face and do that. “Does what comfort me?”
“Your little white lie.” His tongue flicks out for a moment on the last word, black against white teeth.
She isn’t sure what to say for a moment. Just looking at him makes her head hurt. Worse yet, he smells like Ichigo, only tainted subtly. Then she rallies and says, “It is no lie. You are a Hollow. You can be purged.”
His grin widens. “And I’ve always thought you were so honest.” His legs fold under him as he sits across from her. “But there, that’s another little lie. I guess you’re used to lying to this face, aren’t you?”
“What?” she says.
“Lying to Ichigo,” he says, grin still affixed to his face.
She sputters for a moment, then spits out, “You’re the one who’s lied to him.”
“Oh?” He cocks his head again. “When?”
“You...you’ve...” His words sear her brain, and she has to force her thoughts out against the heat. “You’ve promised him power, but that’s not what you offer.”
He leans forward, propping his chin on his hands. “I’ve promised to eat him, Rukia,” he says, voice even.
She stares at him. “But...Nii-sama...”
“What your brother saw was a simple act of self-preservation,” he says. “That body dies, I die with it. And I don’t intend to let that happen before I get my chance to taste this world. To hold it in my palm”--he extends one hand towards the moon--“and crush it.” His hand clenches into a fist, and for a moment, the shadow around him blots out the moon.
Her eyes go wide. “Ichigo will never let you do that,” she says, and the words are strong.
He holds his hand up for another moment, then withdraws it, tucking it under his chin again. “That is between Ichigo and me,” he says. His eyes suddenly flex, irises gone wide, so they glow with white. “If he survives.”
“There’s no way he wouldn’t. Wherever he is, he will beat you.”
“So sure, your words,” he says, laughing a little. “Aren’t you ever afraid that you’re lying to yourself about him as well?”
“What?”
“Aren’t you ever afraid that he’ll become the same as the other one? That the Ichigo who left will come back with me not just tucked in a corner of his mind, but woven into him, black warp to grey weft?” He laughs softly. “Though I don’t fancy tongues sticking out of my eyes.”
Rukia is on her feet before she knows it. “You couldn’t know that,” she hisses. “You couldn’t know that!”
He glides to his feet as well. “Why not, Rukia?” he says. “Aren’t we all the same? Wasn’t that my father, my mother, that died on your blade that night?”
“No!”
He grins. “Exactly,” he says. “But that doesn’t stop you from wondering, does it...” His head lolls to the side, his eyes widen, deaden, and his tongue flops from his mouth. “...little girl?”
She reaches to her side, where her sword sits, and unsheathes it lightning quick. She darts in, plunging the blade into his chest. The movement carries her forward into him, and his hand is suddenly around her throat.
"How right they are to adore you," he says, stroking her cheek with his other hand. "My girl and her bloodstained hands."
She is frozen as he tilts her head up, frozen as she watches his eyes flicker from white to brown to white again. He leans in and kisses her, mouth gentle. She tenses and tries to jerk away from him, but he holds her steady against him. He flicks his tongue against her lips, and it pulls a low sound from her throat. She finds herself deepening the kiss, pushing her tongue inside his mouth until what she smelt before, tasted in the air, washes over her.
This close, the taint is even harder to detect. This close, it is almost Ichigo. This close, it is almost the same.
She tears herself away from him, the sword dropping from her hands. He smiles at her, and runs his finger over the guard of the blade. "How right am I to adore you, my kin beneath the skin."
Something wet and warm crawls over her cheek. She reaches up to touch it, and feels bones beneath her fingers.
"My monster," he says, weaving on his feet. "My sister."
He collapses backwards.
“Sister, sister,” he repeats. “My sister.” He smiles, wide and somehow lovely, somehow sad. “We will meet again, won’t we? Won’t we, sister?”
Where the blood runs, moonlight touches him, and she sees now that his clothes are black, his face tan, his hair orange. She raises her hands, and watches in horror as the blood on them seeps into the skin, turning it moon white.
“Sister...”
The mask covers her eyes, turning the world amber and black.
“Sister!”
Her fingers touch her yet uncovered lips, and greedily, she sucks off the blood.
Her eyes close. Sweet--it is so sweet, the blood on her tongue.
“SISTER!”
Her eyes open, refocus. Kon is standing on her stomach, arms crossed over his chest.
“Sister, you can’t sleep up here!” he admonishes. “You’ll catch cold!”
She sits up and looks at her hands. They are pale, but the skin still holds color, and her nails are still clear. She touches her cheek, and it is soft. She licks her lips, and they taste of sleep.
She looks at Kon. “You’re right,” she says. She turns and looks out into the night, where the sky has already begun to pale. She hoists herself to her feet. “You’re right.”
She can’t sleep, now.
V. Karakura Graveyard
Do yourself a favor
Save yourself
Don't pick me find someone else
It has only been a few months since she was last here. Such a short time, those few months. She has traveled a long distance for such a short time.
Before, she stood in the trees, not daring to intrude. Now, she stands in front of the grave, the single pillar of dark stone chiseled with precise characters. Kurosaki Masaki. Ichigo’s mother, killed by a Hollow.
What would she think of her son, who bears a Hollow inside him?
She crouches before the stone. In Soul Society, to have a mother is a privilege of rank. Here, it is the norm. If she had a mother in her life, that memory was lost to death. If she had a mother in Soul Society, the woman is long dead. Inuzuri does not forgive, nor allow, the slightest asset not taken by force.
She’d never thought much about having a mother. She’d always longed for a sister, someone besides the group of brother-boys she bossed. But that was not to be; she had lost those brothers only to earn another one, whose filial tie was bought and paid for in the color of her hair, the line of her cheek, the shape of her mouth. Her families had always been constructed from debt and forgiveness.
What would it be like, to have someone who loved her enough to lay down their life? Not out of debt or obligation, but simply because that’s who they were? The very thought is foreign and prickly in her head.
She settles down on the stone. She bows her head. She waits, thinking of the woman she only saw as the puppet of a Hollow. She strips those attributes from her and replaces them with gentle human hands and slight human legs. She softens the harsh look and imbues it with the most loving expression she can think of. It comes out slightly skewed--must be the eyebrows--but nice enough. She shuts her eyes tightly and whispers, “Masaki-san.”
“What are you doing here?”
That was not the response she expected. Especially since it was in...
A foot taps her side. “Oi, Rukia.”
...Ichigo’s voice.
She turns and looks up at him, knowing there’s confusion on her face but not caring. “Ichigo?”
He’s standing there, in jeans and one of those ridiculous shirts and a jacket, giving her a look like she’s an idiot. “Yeah?” he says.
She pops up and, before he can say anything, grabs the lapels of his jacket and yanks him down to her level. He makes a surprised noise, but she doesn’t care, just mashes her nose against his and stares into his eyes. They’re brown, and they stay brown even as he blinks, even as the knot of his brow tightens against hers.
“Rukia...” he grits out.
She allows him a little space, then abruptly plants her mouth on his. His lips are tense and stay closed, even when he makes a noise in the back of his throat, even when she flicks her tongue along them. She allows her mouth to linger just a second longer, just to make sure, then releases him, stepping back as she does.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then sputters, “What the fuck, Rukia?”
“Just making sure,” she says, voice even.
“Making SURE?”
She turns back to the grave. “That it’s taken care of,” she says.
“Taken care o...oh.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and says nothing. This time, she’s not saying anything.
He scuffs his feet. “Yeah,” he finally says. “It’s taken care of.”
“Good.” This, too, she keeps even.
Quiet.
“How’re, uh, things at home?”
Her eyes flick to him. “You haven’t been there?”
He doesn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t.”
She turns fully now. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I...shit.” He looks to the side. “I can’t go home yet.”
“Yet?” she says. “Then when?”
His jaw tightens, but he forces out, “I...I don’t know.”
“Ichigo!”
He looks at her, eyes ablaze (and brown). “You think I don’t want to? Shit, I’m even starting to miss the old man,” he spits out.
“Then why don’t you?” she asks, leaning forward a little.
“Because they say it’s not done yet!” he yells.
“Who says?”
He looks down. “I can’t say.”
She takes a step forward. “Then why should you listen to them?” she asks, and is momentarily taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.
He is, too; he looks at her, eyes wide for a moment. Then they narrow. “You told me to take care of my damn Hollow,” he snaps.
“I told you to go to Urahara!”
“And I told you he couldn’t help!” he roars back. “So I went to...I found someone who could.”
“Who?” she asks, taking another step into his space.
“I told you I can’t...”
“Who?!”
“Rukia, damnit, I can’t...”
“WHO?!”
His mouth opens and shuts, and he just glares.
Her eyes narrow. “Have you gone to them?” she asks, voice low.
His eyes flare, but he says nothing.
It is a silence she can’t help but fill.
“Are you still human, Ichigo?”
His eyes widen, then narrow. "What the hell kind of question is that, Rukia?"
She shakes her head. "Answer me.”
"And what are you going to do if I won't?"
"Answer me." She keeps her voice steady and moves closer.
"Why don't you tell me why you're here, then?"
"I will. Answer me." Closer still.
"You first."
"No, Ichigo, you.."
"Uh-uh, Rukia, I'm not..."
"Idiot, just answer me!” She shoves him in the chest.
He shoves her back, growling, “How the hell am I supposed to answer that?”
“Answer me, Ichigo!” She shoves him again. Desperation has leaked into her voice. “ANSWER ME!”
He does.
Not with words--this is beyond words. He grabs her arms, pulls her to him, and plants his mouth against hers. Not gently either, and she can taste that thought on his mouth and tongue: "She wants to know so badly, FINE." And she does want to know, she does, so she pushes back at him just as hard, tongue sweeping his mouth and teeth raking his lips. He responds in the same way, fingers digging into her arms as his mouth tears at herse. She knows, distantly, that this is much of an answer.
But it is an answer nonetheless.
When they pull away, she keeps her eyes closed. “You don’t know,” she says softly. She steps back and shakes her head. “You don’t know.”
He sighs quietly. “Yeah.”
She pries her eyes open and looks at him. His head is raised, looking beyond her. She reads, for a moment, the lines on his face.
Ichigo...
In an even, normal voice, she says, “You could’ve just told me that.”
His head snaps down, a twisted look on his face--ire and confusion and maybe amusement. Something wholly Ichigo, that.
“I would’ve, if you hadn’t yelled at me.”
“Yelling was the only way you’d tell me, idiot.”
His brow creases more. “Not when you keep doing it and don’t let me to talk.”
“Mm. Maybe.”
They don’t look at each other. When she finally glances at him, she realizes his eyes are on the gravestone.
“What was she like?”
His head jerks up. “Huh?”
“Your mother.”
Ichigo’s face hardens, then softens slightly. “I thought you were gonna wait to ask.”
“Not her death, moron,” she says. “Just...her.” She looks at the stone, tries again to read the character in the characters.
Ichigo takes a soft breath. “Kind. Gentle. Wonderful. She...we...she was the heart of our family.”
“Ah.” She crosses her arms over her chest against the odd chill.
Ichigo shuffles a step closer to her, and she moves a step away, letting him stand closer to the grave.
“You remember when we were here before?”
“Yeah.”
“I asked if you were angry.”
She nods.
“Are...are you angry, Rukia?”
She looks at him, but he doesn’t look back. She turns her head back, looks at the ground.
“Of course I am, idiot,” she says, voice soft. “You didn’t even leave a note.” She raises her head a little. “I left a note, and I was being hunted.”
“In code.”
“Of course.”
“Heh.” Another moment of quiet. “Are they angry?”
She doesn’t have to ask. “No, just worried. Even Karin, at this point.”
“Ah.”
“But...” she adds after a moment, looking at him.
“But?” he says, face coming up to meet hers.
“I’m watching over them,” she says. “So...do what needs to be done.”
He holds her eyes a moment longer, then nods. “I will.”
“Good.”
There is nothing more to say after that.
As she watches him fade from view, a voice beside her says, "That is my son, with whom I am well pleased."
Rukia turns. The figure floats half in and half out of the grave stone, features misty and blurred. Even so, she knows who it is.
“And quite the pain in the ass, isn’t he?” Masaki continues. She glances at Rukia. “But you already knew that.”
Rukia nods.
“What did you want to know then, Rukia? What brought you to me, whose soul no longer exists?”
"I want to know who I am," Rukia says. "To him."
Masaki says nothing.
"Am I shinigami? Mentor? Partner?" She pauses. “What AM I?"
"And you think I would know this," Masaki says, voice soft.
Rukia lowers his head. "You're his mother. You have to know."
Masaki watches her steadily for a moment, then says, "I don't think this is your real question, Rukia. You only think it is, because you've never know who you are without someone to define it for you."
Rukia's head jerks back in shock.
"And I won't--can't--do that for you."
"Then what can you do?" Rukia snarls.
"Do you remember what my son said to you, the day you made him fight his first Hollow?"
Rukia nods slowly. "That it had to be personal--this job, this thing--for him. That duty couldn't have driven my actions to save him." She shakes her head. "Foolish then, foolish now."
"Or not foolish at all."
Rukia gives her a dark look. "It was duty."
"Was it?"
"Of course it was!"
"So duty drove you to throw yourself in front of a Hollow, instead of being smart and putting your sword through the boy into its mask. You could've healed him, later. You could've saved yourself so much trouble. But you didn't do that, Rukia. You chose to throw yourself in his path, knowing what would happen to your body if you did. That's not duty. That's penance."
The shock rips through Rukia like a Way of Destruction, reverberating from foot to head. "But..what...what..."
Masaki's gaze is level on her. "You sought penance in my son. And when you realized it, you sought penance for that. And now, you seek some relief from a sin that is not even yours. You cannot imagine a sacrifice that does not have a price tag attached to it."
Suddenly, she smiles. "Which is why you want to know where you stand with my son. Because it is no longer penance with him, is it? It is no longer duty, is it? It is personal, now, as he thought it was personal then." Her smiles fades a little. "And you fear the price tag attached to that will be the one I paid, don't you?"
"Yes." The word is barely audible.
"Where is the fear in that, Rukia?" she asks, voice gentle. "Why does Death fear death?"
"I was taught to die for duty," she says. "I was taught to die for a purpose." She looks down. "The only purpose in dying for him...is for myself." She meets Masaki's eyes. "I am selfish and disgusting even in that."
"Are you?" Masaki's voice has faded slightly, as has her image, so that the multitude of graves show through her body. "Or is it just because you don't want to die for something personal--you want to live for it instead."
She leans in closer, somehow--Rukia can smell the incense in her hair. "There are two kinds of fights, Rukia: one for life, and one for honor. No one said that a fight for life is without honor. And no one said you had to die to protect honor, either. My son taught you that, and you should remember it well."
Then she is gone.
Rukia closes her eyes for a second, then reaches out as if to touch the stone. Her fingers stop an inch above the surface. "That is not an answer, Masaki-san," she whispers. "Not the one I came looking for."
She looks down the path, where Ichigo has long vanished. "But it will do, for now."
(5199)
This is the version that went up on ichi_ruki. It didn't place in the contest, but I'm rather proud of it anyways.
Theme
Outside, confidence is king
I am all that you're projecting
Inside, feel the rising time
And the revolution's deafening
I. Soul Society
It’s too much pressure
I’ll only let you down again
The night before they go to the living world, Rukia stays in the 13th division barracks. She has not slept well in the Kuchiki house since her brother's pre-mission report, and she had hoped her old room among her old comrades would help her rest. It does not; she finds herself staring at the thin crescent moon in the sky instead, finding more rest in that than behind closed eyes.
“Report,” Captain-General Yamamoto says. His face glows in the moonlight.
She is kneeling before him on a cushion of silk. Though her back is to them, she can see how the others are arrayed behind her: the chosen team flanking her sides, the Captains and Vice-Captains gathered behind them. She holds her sword across thighs.
She keeps her eyes on her sword as Hitsugaya speaks. It looks as if it is halfway between sealed and released: the guard is round, but there is black on the blade. She frowns. Her sword should be sheathed. Her sword should be sealed. Her sword should be--
Why is there black on the blade?
Hitsugaya is succinct; he finishes his report before her next thought has time to form.
Yamamoto nods. “Very well,” he says. Then his eyes shift to her. Something cold wells in Rukia’s breast. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she realizes everyone has turned towards her. They are all looking at her.
“And the boy?” Yamamoto says, voice like the grave.
Rukia raises her head. Her chest is icy. The cold within crackles, takes shape without. She reaches into the folds of her kimono and finds what has formed.
She pulls it out and lifts it before the assembly, her fingers firmly tangled in his--its--orange hair. They do not touch the mask.
“Taken care of,” she says. Her voice is a whisper, but everyone can hear her. Everyone knows what she has done.
Yamamoto smiles kindly. “Very good,” he says, voice soothing. “Very, very good, Kuchiki-san. That is one problem dealt with.”
A drop of black blood falls from the severed neck, landing on her blade.
II. The Streets of Karakura
(No, I am not open parts of me are broken)
This is not how it happened in her head.
One moment, she’s taught Ichigo that he no longer fights alone. She has tested the killing edge of her blade in this world of thick air and not found it wanting. She has saved him from a death he could not deliver.
The next, she’s wrenched into the air by a sneering, blue-haired monster. He balances her on his wrist like a plate on a stick, his fingers caressing liver, intestines, as if testing their merits. He sneers again and they fail, she fails, and all together, fall.
She was chosen for her speed, she thinks. Why, then, was she so slow?
Why did they always have to cut Ichigo out, as if culling a prize from the herd, by butchering those who stood around him? How could he learn that way? They were...teaching him...the wrong...thing...
She hears Ichigo’s cry in the shape of her name as she strikes the ground.
Her head smacks against the pavement. Sparks blot her vision, and she holds her head steady until her vision clears. She forces herself to sit up, one hand covering her belly to keep her guts from spilling out. But there is no wound, and the sounds of battle have vanished.
Her brother stands over her, sword in hand.
“Nii-sama?” she says.
“Rukia,” he says.
Their eyes meet for a moment.
Rukia pulls herself into a kneeling position, and bends her head to touch the pavement. “This one is very, very sorry, Kuchiki-sama,” she says, voice stiff with frustration. “This one has failed to prove herself again.”
He is silent for a long moment. Then, “Rukia.”
“Yes.” She keeps her head down.
“Raise your head.”
She does, but does not meet his eyes.
Another moment. His blade slips under her chin, point against her throat. The cold touch raises her head until her eyes settle on his.
“This is not failure,” he says.
He pulls back the sword and plunges it into her belly. For a moment, there is no pain, just warmth; then the pain blossoms. Not sharp, just an ache, slow-spreading, unfurling, settling under her skin as if it belongs there.
“This is not failure,” he says.
He eases the blade from her, flicks the blood from its tip. Some of it spatters against her face.
He raises the sword and places the point against her heart. She can still smell her blood on the icy metal.
“Here there is failure,” he says. “In the division that cannot be mended.”
“Nii-sama...”
“It is one thing you share,” he says, blade tip parting cloth and skin. “A divided heart.” The blade skids between bone, pauses, angles up, and slides in farther. She shouldn’t be able to feel this, but she can: the point whispering through muscle and tissue, delicately parting the folds of her heart. It is not pain, it is--null, as if each bisected beat were bleeding off the sensation.
“His division has always been,” he says, as the blade comes to rest on her back ribs. “Your division has not, but you take his and add it to yours. As if they were the same.” He changes his grip on the sword. “They are not, Rukia. Two wounds together do not make a whole.” He punches the blade out through her back. “Your scars must be your own.”
“Nii-sama,” she manages again.
He drops the blade, and it stays, fast through her heart. “That is the failure you share.”
III. The Kurosaki House, part one
Sometimes you put all of your desires in an object of affection
But in time because you idolise there is only disappointment
After the night she’s had, Rukia doesn’t feel like sleeping. One does not tread the path of death lightly, even if one is Death. Fighting, healing, walking home with an Ichigo turned so inside he was almost concave--all of this should have tired her out. It has left her keyed up instead. So she sits in the window of the girls’ room and watches the play of white city lights along the clouds, and does her best not to think.
The stream runs silver with salmon that day--young fish, vigorous and lively. But they are young too, and come away with a decent catch. Cooked and cleaned, the fish sit between them, bordered by an arrangement of filched rice.
“He loves you, you know.”
She glares daggers at Renji as she stabs a piece of fish. “Who does?” she asks. Stupid statements deserve stupid questions in return.
He carefully picks up his own piece. “Ichigo.”
She pauses, then takes a delicate bite. The flesh melts to salt in her mouth. She swallows and says, “That’s idiotic.”
Renji shrugs, chews, swallows. “Not for me to pass judgement.”
“Except it is.” There is conviction in her voice.
Renji raises one lined eyebrow, and she can’t help but feel that the tattoos on his face belong to a much older man. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?” she asks, voice rising.
He points at her with the chopsticks. “Not when you’re in that uniform.”
She looks down at herself and finds, to her surprise, that she is dressed as a shinigami. She touches the short sleeve of the Captain’s haori, the scarf at her neck, the kenseikan in her hair, and looks at him with wide eyes. “I’m Kuchiki.”
“Yup.” He picks up another piece of fish. A drop of grease lands on the blue of his uniform, and he brushes at it in annoyance.
She blinks, then says in a voice more fitting, “Then it is even more foolish to suggest such things.”
“That he loves you?”
“That he would dare.”
Renji looks at her, then begins to choke. He coughs and hacks and gasps, and she would reach for him except that he is beneath her. Finally he spits out the offending piece of meat and drops it in the grass, where it immediately takes root. He looks at her, eyes watering, and grins.
“What?” she demands, voice not quite imperious enough.
“You’re acting like he’s about to show up beneath your balcony and start reciting badly composed tanka about, oh, the spread of your hair or the sweep of your sleeve. You’re acting like he knows.” He leans back a little, still grinning in that foolish way.
“Shouldn’t he?”
Renji shakes his head. “Ichigo doesn’t know things, he does things.”
“And others explain it later,” she says.
“You got it.”
She shakes her head. “I wish I didn’t.”
His look turns exasperated. “What’s so wrong with it, Rukia?” He toys with the rice, chopsticks teasing grains instead of scooping them. “He’s not the only one.”
“I know.” She looks down and fiddles with the cloth of her hakama. The fish has made her belly ache. “You all are fools.”
A moment of quiet. He sighs.
“Don’t you remember?”
“Remember what.” Her voice is flat.
“No one thinks of you the way you think of you. Idiot.” His voice is almost gentle.
She looks up at him now. “And that’s why you are fools,” she says simply.
She takes another piece of fish and bites carefully into it. The flesh is bitter on her tongue.
IV. The Kurosaki House, pt. 2
I was trying to hide my opposing side
Trying to reconcile my Jekyll and Hyde
Ichigo has not come back, and she is waiting for him.
The night is cool, the moon bright. She waits on the roof because it’s the best tactical point: she can see in every direction, so no matter how he comes home, she’ll know it before he arrives. It’s quieter up here, too, without the strange aura of power that permeates the Kurosaki house.
She keeps to her feet at first, pacing the corners of the roof, alert. As the night wears on, she sits and concentrates on feeling out his reiatsu. It comes and goes now, a black spike with a blue core on the map behind her eyes. She wishes she could track it, but it’s too diffused, and she knows what she’s sensing isn’t in real time, but an aftershock. That she could track, but the diffusion bothers her; it means someone’s put up a barrier. A strong one. And there’s only one man in this town who could do something like that.
The thought should cheer her. It does not. Nothing is ever that simple.
The wait is long, but she doesn’t think she will sleep. Not even sitting like this on the roof, against the bricks, head tilted up to the moon. Not even with her eyes closed, searching the dark. Not even...
Footsteps. Not on the roof, but the susurrus of sandals scraping air. A black wave comes with the sound--not the rush and crash of high tide, but the white speckled ebb of low. She knows by that who has come to her, and her only thought is, It was my push that brought this. I should see what I shoved against.
She opens her eyes.
The figure stands in shadow despite the moon above. It looks more like Ichigo than she expected, with only a few subtle differences : a white shinigami uniform beneath a crooked grin beneath black eyes. His grin widens, as if he can see her confusion. She sits up, raises her chin, and says in her best Kuchiki voice, “Hollow.”
“Rukia.”
Her eyes narrow. “Do not address me in the familiar.”
He tilts his head to the side. “He does.”
“You are not him.”
He studies her for a moment, then shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
He steps from the air onto the roof. The movement is too fluid. “That you know better.”
She forces herself to stay still. “I do not accept that.”
He cocks his head. “Does that comfort you?” he asks.
She has long thought of him as “it,” but this close, she can’t hold the pronoun; she can’t look at his face and do that. “Does what comfort me?”
“Your little white lie.” His tongue flicks out for a moment on the last word, black against white teeth.
She isn’t sure what to say for a moment. Just looking at him makes her head hurt. Worse yet, he smells like Ichigo, only tainted subtly. Then she rallies and says, “It is no lie. You are a Hollow. You can be purged.”
His grin widens. “And I’ve always thought you were so honest.” His legs fold under him as he sits across from her. “But there, that’s another little lie. I guess you’re used to lying to this face, aren’t you?”
“What?” she says.
“Lying to Ichigo,” he says, grin still affixed to his face.
She sputters for a moment, then spits out, “You’re the one who’s lied to him.”
“Oh?” He cocks his head again. “When?”
“You...you’ve...” His words sear her brain, and she has to force her thoughts out against the heat. “You’ve promised him power, but that’s not what you offer.”
He leans forward, propping his chin on his hands. “I’ve promised to eat him, Rukia,” he says, voice even.
She stares at him. “But...Nii-sama...”
“What your brother saw was a simple act of self-preservation,” he says. “That body dies, I die with it. And I don’t intend to let that happen before I get my chance to taste this world. To hold it in my palm”--he extends one hand towards the moon--“and crush it.” His hand clenches into a fist, and for a moment, the shadow around him blots out the moon.
Her eyes go wide. “Ichigo will never let you do that,” she says, and the words are strong.
He holds his hand up for another moment, then withdraws it, tucking it under his chin again. “That is between Ichigo and me,” he says. His eyes suddenly flex, irises gone wide, so they glow with white. “If he survives.”
“There’s no way he wouldn’t. Wherever he is, he will beat you.”
“So sure, your words,” he says, laughing a little. “Aren’t you ever afraid that you’re lying to yourself about him as well?”
“What?”
“Aren’t you ever afraid that he’ll become the same as the other one? That the Ichigo who left will come back with me not just tucked in a corner of his mind, but woven into him, black warp to grey weft?” He laughs softly. “Though I don’t fancy tongues sticking out of my eyes.”
Rukia is on her feet before she knows it. “You couldn’t know that,” she hisses. “You couldn’t know that!”
He glides to his feet as well. “Why not, Rukia?” he says. “Aren’t we all the same? Wasn’t that my father, my mother, that died on your blade that night?”
“No!”
He grins. “Exactly,” he says. “But that doesn’t stop you from wondering, does it...” His head lolls to the side, his eyes widen, deaden, and his tongue flops from his mouth. “...little girl?”
She reaches to her side, where her sword sits, and unsheathes it lightning quick. She darts in, plunging the blade into his chest. The movement carries her forward into him, and his hand is suddenly around her throat.
"How right they are to adore you," he says, stroking her cheek with his other hand. "My girl and her bloodstained hands."
She is frozen as he tilts her head up, frozen as she watches his eyes flicker from white to brown to white again. He leans in and kisses her, mouth gentle. She tenses and tries to jerk away from him, but he holds her steady against him. He flicks his tongue against her lips, and it pulls a low sound from her throat. She finds herself deepening the kiss, pushing her tongue inside his mouth until what she smelt before, tasted in the air, washes over her.
This close, the taint is even harder to detect. This close, it is almost Ichigo. This close, it is almost the same.
She tears herself away from him, the sword dropping from her hands. He smiles at her, and runs his finger over the guard of the blade. "How right am I to adore you, my kin beneath the skin."
Something wet and warm crawls over her cheek. She reaches up to touch it, and feels bones beneath her fingers.
"My monster," he says, weaving on his feet. "My sister."
He collapses backwards.
“Sister, sister,” he repeats. “My sister.” He smiles, wide and somehow lovely, somehow sad. “We will meet again, won’t we? Won’t we, sister?”
Where the blood runs, moonlight touches him, and she sees now that his clothes are black, his face tan, his hair orange. She raises her hands, and watches in horror as the blood on them seeps into the skin, turning it moon white.
“Sister...”
The mask covers her eyes, turning the world amber and black.
“Sister!”
Her fingers touch her yet uncovered lips, and greedily, she sucks off the blood.
Her eyes close. Sweet--it is so sweet, the blood on her tongue.
“SISTER!”
Her eyes open, refocus. Kon is standing on her stomach, arms crossed over his chest.
“Sister, you can’t sleep up here!” he admonishes. “You’ll catch cold!”
She sits up and looks at her hands. They are pale, but the skin still holds color, and her nails are still clear. She touches her cheek, and it is soft. She licks her lips, and they taste of sleep.
She looks at Kon. “You’re right,” she says. She turns and looks out into the night, where the sky has already begun to pale. She hoists herself to her feet. “You’re right.”
She can’t sleep, now.
V. Karakura Graveyard
Do yourself a favor
Save yourself
Don't pick me find someone else
It has only been a few months since she was last here. Such a short time, those few months. She has traveled a long distance for such a short time.
Before, she stood in the trees, not daring to intrude. Now, she stands in front of the grave, the single pillar of dark stone chiseled with precise characters. Kurosaki Masaki. Ichigo’s mother, killed by a Hollow.
What would she think of her son, who bears a Hollow inside him?
She crouches before the stone. In Soul Society, to have a mother is a privilege of rank. Here, it is the norm. If she had a mother in her life, that memory was lost to death. If she had a mother in Soul Society, the woman is long dead. Inuzuri does not forgive, nor allow, the slightest asset not taken by force.
She’d never thought much about having a mother. She’d always longed for a sister, someone besides the group of brother-boys she bossed. But that was not to be; she had lost those brothers only to earn another one, whose filial tie was bought and paid for in the color of her hair, the line of her cheek, the shape of her mouth. Her families had always been constructed from debt and forgiveness.
What would it be like, to have someone who loved her enough to lay down their life? Not out of debt or obligation, but simply because that’s who they were? The very thought is foreign and prickly in her head.
She settles down on the stone. She bows her head. She waits, thinking of the woman she only saw as the puppet of a Hollow. She strips those attributes from her and replaces them with gentle human hands and slight human legs. She softens the harsh look and imbues it with the most loving expression she can think of. It comes out slightly skewed--must be the eyebrows--but nice enough. She shuts her eyes tightly and whispers, “Masaki-san.”
“What are you doing here?”
That was not the response she expected. Especially since it was in...
A foot taps her side. “Oi, Rukia.”
...Ichigo’s voice.
She turns and looks up at him, knowing there’s confusion on her face but not caring. “Ichigo?”
He’s standing there, in jeans and one of those ridiculous shirts and a jacket, giving her a look like she’s an idiot. “Yeah?” he says.
She pops up and, before he can say anything, grabs the lapels of his jacket and yanks him down to her level. He makes a surprised noise, but she doesn’t care, just mashes her nose against his and stares into his eyes. They’re brown, and they stay brown even as he blinks, even as the knot of his brow tightens against hers.
“Rukia...” he grits out.
She allows him a little space, then abruptly plants her mouth on his. His lips are tense and stay closed, even when he makes a noise in the back of his throat, even when she flicks her tongue along them. She allows her mouth to linger just a second longer, just to make sure, then releases him, stepping back as she does.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then sputters, “What the fuck, Rukia?”
“Just making sure,” she says, voice even.
“Making SURE?”
She turns back to the grave. “That it’s taken care of,” she says.
“Taken care o...oh.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and says nothing. This time, she’s not saying anything.
He scuffs his feet. “Yeah,” he finally says. “It’s taken care of.”
“Good.” This, too, she keeps even.
Quiet.
“How’re, uh, things at home?”
Her eyes flick to him. “You haven’t been there?”
He doesn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t.”
She turns fully now. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I...shit.” He looks to the side. “I can’t go home yet.”
“Yet?” she says. “Then when?”
His jaw tightens, but he forces out, “I...I don’t know.”
“Ichigo!”
He looks at her, eyes ablaze (and brown). “You think I don’t want to? Shit, I’m even starting to miss the old man,” he spits out.
“Then why don’t you?” she asks, leaning forward a little.
“Because they say it’s not done yet!” he yells.
“Who says?”
He looks down. “I can’t say.”
She takes a step forward. “Then why should you listen to them?” she asks, and is momentarily taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.
He is, too; he looks at her, eyes wide for a moment. Then they narrow. “You told me to take care of my damn Hollow,” he snaps.
“I told you to go to Urahara!”
“And I told you he couldn’t help!” he roars back. “So I went to...I found someone who could.”
“Who?” she asks, taking another step into his space.
“I told you I can’t...”
“Who?!”
“Rukia, damnit, I can’t...”
“WHO?!”
His mouth opens and shuts, and he just glares.
Her eyes narrow. “Have you gone to them?” she asks, voice low.
His eyes flare, but he says nothing.
It is a silence she can’t help but fill.
“Are you still human, Ichigo?”
His eyes widen, then narrow. "What the hell kind of question is that, Rukia?"
She shakes her head. "Answer me.”
"And what are you going to do if I won't?"
"Answer me." She keeps her voice steady and moves closer.
"Why don't you tell me why you're here, then?"
"I will. Answer me." Closer still.
"You first."
"No, Ichigo, you.."
"Uh-uh, Rukia, I'm not..."
"Idiot, just answer me!” She shoves him in the chest.
He shoves her back, growling, “How the hell am I supposed to answer that?”
“Answer me, Ichigo!” She shoves him again. Desperation has leaked into her voice. “ANSWER ME!”
He does.
Not with words--this is beyond words. He grabs her arms, pulls her to him, and plants his mouth against hers. Not gently either, and she can taste that thought on his mouth and tongue: "She wants to know so badly, FINE." And she does want to know, she does, so she pushes back at him just as hard, tongue sweeping his mouth and teeth raking his lips. He responds in the same way, fingers digging into her arms as his mouth tears at herse. She knows, distantly, that this is much of an answer.
But it is an answer nonetheless.
When they pull away, she keeps her eyes closed. “You don’t know,” she says softly. She steps back and shakes her head. “You don’t know.”
He sighs quietly. “Yeah.”
She pries her eyes open and looks at him. His head is raised, looking beyond her. She reads, for a moment, the lines on his face.
Ichigo...
In an even, normal voice, she says, “You could’ve just told me that.”
His head snaps down, a twisted look on his face--ire and confusion and maybe amusement. Something wholly Ichigo, that.
“I would’ve, if you hadn’t yelled at me.”
“Yelling was the only way you’d tell me, idiot.”
His brow creases more. “Not when you keep doing it and don’t let me to talk.”
“Mm. Maybe.”
They don’t look at each other. When she finally glances at him, she realizes his eyes are on the gravestone.
“What was she like?”
His head jerks up. “Huh?”
“Your mother.”
Ichigo’s face hardens, then softens slightly. “I thought you were gonna wait to ask.”
“Not her death, moron,” she says. “Just...her.” She looks at the stone, tries again to read the character in the characters.
Ichigo takes a soft breath. “Kind. Gentle. Wonderful. She...we...she was the heart of our family.”
“Ah.” She crosses her arms over her chest against the odd chill.
Ichigo shuffles a step closer to her, and she moves a step away, letting him stand closer to the grave.
“You remember when we were here before?”
“Yeah.”
“I asked if you were angry.”
She nods.
“Are...are you angry, Rukia?”
She looks at him, but he doesn’t look back. She turns her head back, looks at the ground.
“Of course I am, idiot,” she says, voice soft. “You didn’t even leave a note.” She raises her head a little. “I left a note, and I was being hunted.”
“In code.”
“Of course.”
“Heh.” Another moment of quiet. “Are they angry?”
She doesn’t have to ask. “No, just worried. Even Karin, at this point.”
“Ah.”
“But...” she adds after a moment, looking at him.
“But?” he says, face coming up to meet hers.
“I’m watching over them,” she says. “So...do what needs to be done.”
He holds her eyes a moment longer, then nods. “I will.”
“Good.”
There is nothing more to say after that.
As she watches him fade from view, a voice beside her says, "That is my son, with whom I am well pleased."
Rukia turns. The figure floats half in and half out of the grave stone, features misty and blurred. Even so, she knows who it is.
“And quite the pain in the ass, isn’t he?” Masaki continues. She glances at Rukia. “But you already knew that.”
Rukia nods.
“What did you want to know then, Rukia? What brought you to me, whose soul no longer exists?”
"I want to know who I am," Rukia says. "To him."
Masaki says nothing.
"Am I shinigami? Mentor? Partner?" She pauses. “What AM I?"
"And you think I would know this," Masaki says, voice soft.
Rukia lowers his head. "You're his mother. You have to know."
Masaki watches her steadily for a moment, then says, "I don't think this is your real question, Rukia. You only think it is, because you've never know who you are without someone to define it for you."
Rukia's head jerks back in shock.
"And I won't--can't--do that for you."
"Then what can you do?" Rukia snarls.
"Do you remember what my son said to you, the day you made him fight his first Hollow?"
Rukia nods slowly. "That it had to be personal--this job, this thing--for him. That duty couldn't have driven my actions to save him." She shakes her head. "Foolish then, foolish now."
"Or not foolish at all."
Rukia gives her a dark look. "It was duty."
"Was it?"
"Of course it was!"
"So duty drove you to throw yourself in front of a Hollow, instead of being smart and putting your sword through the boy into its mask. You could've healed him, later. You could've saved yourself so much trouble. But you didn't do that, Rukia. You chose to throw yourself in his path, knowing what would happen to your body if you did. That's not duty. That's penance."
The shock rips through Rukia like a Way of Destruction, reverberating from foot to head. "But..what...what..."
Masaki's gaze is level on her. "You sought penance in my son. And when you realized it, you sought penance for that. And now, you seek some relief from a sin that is not even yours. You cannot imagine a sacrifice that does not have a price tag attached to it."
Suddenly, she smiles. "Which is why you want to know where you stand with my son. Because it is no longer penance with him, is it? It is no longer duty, is it? It is personal, now, as he thought it was personal then." Her smiles fades a little. "And you fear the price tag attached to that will be the one I paid, don't you?"
"Yes." The word is barely audible.
"Where is the fear in that, Rukia?" she asks, voice gentle. "Why does Death fear death?"
"I was taught to die for duty," she says. "I was taught to die for a purpose." She looks down. "The only purpose in dying for him...is for myself." She meets Masaki's eyes. "I am selfish and disgusting even in that."
"Are you?" Masaki's voice has faded slightly, as has her image, so that the multitude of graves show through her body. "Or is it just because you don't want to die for something personal--you want to live for it instead."
She leans in closer, somehow--Rukia can smell the incense in her hair. "There are two kinds of fights, Rukia: one for life, and one for honor. No one said that a fight for life is without honor. And no one said you had to die to protect honor, either. My son taught you that, and you should remember it well."
Then she is gone.
Rukia closes her eyes for a second, then reaches out as if to touch the stone. Her fingers stop an inch above the surface. "That is not an answer, Masaki-san," she whispers. "Not the one I came looking for."
She looks down the path, where Ichigo has long vanished. "But it will do, for now."
(5199)