Contest Entry - Fanfiction: Of Secrets, Scars, and Some Other Things

[tenebris]

Title: Of Secrets, Scars, and Some Other Things
Author: Ten
E-mail: tenebris@livejournal.com
Theme: Contest theme "secrets," IchiRuki theme 36, "scars"
Rating: Oh, the swearing! Oh, the F-word! Soft R.
Word count: 8, 860
Bleach is...: Not mine! It's KT's and some other...random people's. BTW, thank you, KT, for the inspiration.
Dedication: To Angsty, Dorky, and Plotty for all their comments, gentle nudges, and outright, "YES, you can do that, so would you finish it already?" Also to Mari for her covert thumbs up. Much <3 to ya, ladies.
Notes: Wow, I finished an hour early? How odd. Anyways, this fic is very sewious (for those who like that sort of thing) and quite goofy all at once. Do enjoy. :)


In the Academy, they had talked about the “art” of killing Hollows. First the soul-if there was one-was spirited to safety; then, the art of getting behind the beast, making that first head shot count, and getting away without seeing the soul beneath. Rukia, when she actually did fight one, was fairly good at practicing this “art.”

Not today. Had her Academy instructors seen her strikes today, her grades would have gone down substantially. She resheathed her sword and did not turn away from the vanishing creature. Normally, she would turn her back on it, a sign of respect for a fallen soul now saved. But she had other things on her mind.

Ichigo had not appeared.

This would not have been entirely strange except for the fact that Ichigo had not appeared to answer a Hollow alert in a while. She was not good at reckoning time by human standards, but she did know that it had to have been at least a week. Maybe a day more than that.

This was not how she had wanted to spend her time in this world. She had taken on this new district after the war, after everything had happened, partly because Ichigo was in it. She had thought she would have an apprentice and growing partner; instead, she often had to find HIM when there was any sign of a Hollow, or expect him late if he even sensed it at all. Konsou--well, that apparently was out of the question.

It had annoyed months before this, when they had had their little "discussion" about his personal life. Now she was truly angry.

He had never made his apartment off limits to her. He might have hinted it once or twice, but he had never made it explicit, had he? She was going to take advantage of that. And when he got home from what he was doing--which could be classes, but was more likely to be a date--she was going to give him a piece of his mind. She was going to make him remember why he still had his powers in the first place.

She expected him to not be there when she stepped through the wall into his bedroom.

But he was.

In a way.

She walked over to the bed, leaned over, and poked the lump there. "Ichigo," she said.

The lump curled up tighter on itself.

"Ichigo, you moron," she said, jabbing at him again. "Get up."

"No," said the lump, voice faint yet recognizably petulant.

"Get up or I will poke you with something that is not my finger," she said. She unlocked her sword for emphasis.

"How about you get the hell out of my room?" said the lump, shifting away from her.

She gritted her teeth for a moment--stupid, foolish, idiot boy! "I am not leaving," she said, keeping her voice barely calm, "until I talk to you face to face. So do not even think you can banish me that way."

The lump said nothing, but it seemed like a black haze had gathered about it. Fine, then.

"Haven't you heard the alerts?" she asked. She glanced at his bedpost and the table next to the bed, and her eyes narrowed. "Where is your badge?" she asked.

"Drowned it."

"You did what?"

"Drowned it. In the toilet."

"ICHIGO! That's not a cheap piece of equipment!"

The lump shifted a little. "Done it before."

"Why would you do something like that?"

"Because I didn't want to deal with it!" The lump's voice had gotten louder, and the lump itself had uncurled a little. Though she was irritated with what he said, she knew that it would only take a little more to push him to sitting up, to looking at her.

Then, their true discussion could begin.

"Ichigo, it's a Hollow alert! You've been dealing with them since you were FIFTEEN. This is your job, and delays could mean the loss of..."

She stopped and cocked her head. A moment later, a sharp beep sounded. She flicked her wrist, snapping the tiny indicator out of her inner sleeve. "Hollow," she said.

The indicator beeped again. "Another one," she said, then looked at him. "You still aren't going to move, are you?"

The lump said nothing, and it said it resentfully.

"Fine." She tucked the indicator away. "Then don't you dare move before I get back."

It had not been a huge surprise that Ichigo had decided to go to college.

After the war had ended with the sealing of Aizen, after the healings and the celebrations and the slow start towards something like normality, Ichigo had taken a break. He had spent a good portion of the Aizen War--the official bit of it, anyways--out of school and in training, and he had a lot of work to catch up on. He was still healing then, too, not to mention finding the careful balance within himself. Rukia had gone to check up on him as much as she could, but with the promotion of Ukitake to General and the shuffling around of her own division, that had not been as much as she would have liked.

The war had ended in the winter. That summer, Ichigo went to stay with the Visoreds. When he'd come back--and she had been there when he had come back, as was her given right--he'd said that he'd reached a settlement with his Hollow. Not that it was taken care of, or that it had been dealt with: no, only that a settlement had been reached. Afterwards, he had gone to bed and slept for nearly a week.

It was the first small change in Ichigo. It would not be the last.

As it turned out, there were three Hollows.

They were not freshly fallen souls, but they weren't very old, either. They were fast and on the big side, and Rukia took note of both of those things as she dispatched them.

She did not hurry. She took exactly the right amount of time to be careful, yet efficient. When it was over, there was minimal property damage, and no damage to herself.

She did not hurry in doing her job.

But, perhaps, she hurried--only a little--on her way back.

It had not been a huge surprise that Ichigo had decided to go to college. He had done enough schoolwork for it, after all. Rukia had thought the Academy had been tedious, but the things Ichigo had to learn in his "high school"--really, was reading all of those books necessary? The math she could understand, but the books? And yet there was so little practical...

Perhaps that was what college for. She wasn't entirely sure, because between studying for the practice exams and the entrance exams, taking both of them, and the inevitable recovery afterwards, she had not seen much of him. Even though he had accepted General Ukitake's offer to come to Soul Society and train there, she rarely ran into him. He always seemed to be busy. She had a feeling her brother and the General had seen to that.

Though they had been working together to sweep the district for months now, the last time they had spent any amount of time with each other had been in the spring. She had come to talk to him about how college would affect his schedule. It had turned into a much longer chat, as if they had both known what was to come.

In April, he had started college.

In May came the girls.

When she stepped back into his room, she found that he had listened to her instruction: the lump had not moved. She frowned; while she was fine with not having to chase him down somewhere, it was not like him to just...sit there. The atmosphere in the room seemed noticeably darker as well.

She moved back to the bed and poked the lump. "Ichigo," she said. "Are you asleep?"

"Mrrrph," said the lump. "Tryin' to."

She poked him harder. "Do not fall asleep," she said. "We still have to talk."

"Don' wanna talk, Rukia. Go 'way."

She glared at the lump, then sat down on the bed. "I am not leaving until we talk, Ichigo," she said. She shifted a little so that her back was to him. "There were three.”

For a few seconds, nothing. Then the lump shifted a little towards her and said, "You okay?"

"Of course I am."

Another shift in the lump. "You sure? Your arm..."

"I am fine," she snapped. "And while I could have used the help, everything was taken care of." She turned to glare at him. "So there is no need for your concern."

The lump was still, and she looked away from it. Him. Whichever it was. "I do not need it," she continued after another moment. "Not when you have been shirking your duties." She felt him tense, and added, "If you do not want to do your duty..."

The bedsprings creaked as the lump sat up behind her. "Sometimes I don't," he said.

Her back stiffened. I knew it, she thought, but said nothing. He didn't add anything, and for a stretched moment, they sat in silence.

"Sometimes, I'd just like things to be more normal," he said, voice quiet. The bed creaked again, and she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder and see why. "I know it can't ever be completely like that, but...it'd be fucking nice, once and awhile."

So it was that.

She had expected him to sound angry. Urahara, Yoruichi, even his father--they'd warned her about this. When he gets to college, he's going to want to assimilate more and more. If you want to stay in place as his liason, you will have to be able to deal with that. But she hadn’t expected, nor did she understand, why he sounded so depressed about it.

"Ichigo," she said, "what happened?"

Another shift, and she knew he'd put his head in his hands. "Akiko," he said.

Oh, she though, things clicking into place. Ichigo's girlfriend.

Of course Ichigo was going to go to college. Of course things were going to change because of that.

But she had not expected girls. Even though she had had her own fair share of experiences with boys at the Academy, she had never thought that the same thing would happen to him. It was Ichigo, who couldn't even look at Matsumoto in her uniform without blushing.

She had talked to Karin about it shortly after she had noticed. Are they out of their minds? she had wondered. He is ornery and impatient and clueless!

But they like those things, Karin had told her.

I find that hard to believe, she had replied.

Wanna bet on that? Karin had asked, a gleam in her eye.

Shinigami normally did not bet on such trivial things, especially when dealing with the vagaries of humanity. Nevertheless, Rukia had ended up owing Karin a rather nice dinner.

Girls being interested in Ichigo hadn't been the big thing, nor--grudgingly--Ichigo being interested in girls. But he had dated! More than one of them! In fact for awhile, every time she had seen him, he always had had a different clingy creature hogging his arm.

Jealousy was not an emotion Rukia gave much credance to. It was certainly within her rights to be aghast at his taste, though. He was so much more of a moron than she had thought!

Akiko was a new thing, though: a steady girlfriend. She was also the second girl whose name Rukia knew, and the only one because of the length of time she had been involved with Ichigo. The first, well--that was the circumstance that had led to Ichigo giving her shit about coming anywhere near him at school. As if it were her fault that the girl had been scared by such a silly thing. Hmph. That incident had also resulted in the ban on her asking questions about the girls around him. It seemed you could be partners for over three years, hand off a life debt between each other like a collaborative poem, fight side by side and back to back--and yet, there could still be untouched areas. Which she respected; she had her secrets.

Akiko was different than that other, skittish girl. She and Ichigo had been dating for…two months, was it? It was apparently long enough for Ichigo to be able to drop her name, even if he stubbornly refused to discuss anything else. Rukia had seen her a few times, but the only images that had stayed with her were black hair, a white coat, and a pleasant voice. She also wasn't as much of an arm person as the other girls had been. Rukia could at least approve of that.

Even if dating her had become a stupid priority in Ichigo's life. Even if it meant he turned up later and later to assist her, and stayed a shorter and shorter time.

She had been told about the changes. She had expected them to happen. She had known.

She had known.

"Ah," she said after a moment. "Did something happen between you two?"

Ichigo made a sound, and it took her a moment to realize it was a derisive laugh. "No," he said. "No, nothing happened."

She pursed her lips. "Obviously something happened, idiot," she said, "or you would have not been curled up in a lump on your bed. Did you have a fight?"

"Not really."

"Did you break up?" Her voice was even. She was sure her voice was even.

"I...don't think so." He sighed. "I don't know."

"So you didn't have a fight. And you're not sure if you broke up. Yet for some reason you are curled up on your bed, not moving, not talking and ignoring your shinigami duties." She turned a little--just a little, to almost look at him--and said, "You can understand why I am confused."

"I really don't want to talk about this, Rukia."

I really don't want to talk about this with you.

Her hand clenched at her side. "You think you can shirk your duties for an entire week and I won't have something to say about it?"

"Rukia..."

"Shut up, idiot!" she said, turning so she could see his back; she was going to yell at some part of him. "You know I am the one responsible to Soul Society for you. You know I have to report to them about you. You know this! Yet you willingly shirk your duties to have a meeting with this woman, a meeting that has left you in this stupid sulking mood, and you expect me to just say, 'Oh, poor you' even though you won't tell me why!" She paused for a moment to grab the edge of her control, and in a tight, low voice added, "I am the one who has to face the General. I am the one who has to face my BROTHER. It is not you who has to deal with the consequences!"

His back arched and he exploded, “FUCK THAT!”

She blinked.

“Fuck Hollows, fuck Soul Society, and FUCK YOU!”

She gave him a moment, then said, “Are you done?”

"No,” he shot back. “Why can’t you just leave it alone for awhile?”"

"I cannot do that."

"Not even for a day! A DAMN DAY, Rukia!" He breathed hard through his nose. "And Soul Society should get off your back AND mine! They OWE me!"

You think they don't know that, Ichigo? she thought. You think they don't realize that they were saved by a half-human Hollow hybrid? You are a bastard among shinigami, but without your power, we would have all perished. They might be able to forgive your ancestry, but they cannot forget that you are alive. You are still alive, in this world, even though so many of our own are ashes in our world...

She said none of that. He would not understand it; not because of his youth, but because he was Ichigo.

"Soul Society is aware of its debt to you, Ichigo. But it is not a currency you can trade on forever," she said.

"Yeah, I know," he spat, hunching over. "Can't even get you guys to leave me alone for a month. Can't even try for a..." He stopped and shook his head.

She gave him a moment. "Ichigo," she said, voice quiet and firm, "what happened?"

He sighed. "You really wanna know, huh?" he said, and the anger had leeched from his voice, leaving only tiredness behind.

"Yes."

"Akiko and I...we were gonna have sex."

For a moment, the world flashed in negative, and Rukia felt like if she had been standing, she would have taken a step back. Her hand gripped the fabric of her pant leg, and her mouth worked, but nothing came out.

He apparently took that as a sign to proceed. "I know, sounds weird, but...we'd been together for awhile, and we'd talked about it, and...and…she's a really great girl, really..."

"Ichigo," she said. "I am not your father. You do not need to explain your motivations."

"Yeah." He ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, right." He took a breath. "So...she has this thing, where she lays out a time period for doing something. Like a week. And it can happen anytime within there. Like, a couple weeks ago she said she'd make dinner for me in a week--I thought she meant after seven days but she showed up three days in with her..."

"Ichigo."

"Right, right...the sex." Another sigh. "So, last week she said sometime this week she'd come over. And we'd...you know..."

"Copulate."

He snorted. "You would put it that way," he said.

"And this is why you ignored all the Hollow alerts," she said.

"Yeah. I wasn't gonna miss my chance, ya know?" He turned a little to look at her, but she kept her face blank, and a moment later he turned back. "So, yeah. She finally came over today and...we started to do stuff...and it was good...really good..."

Rukia rolled her eyes and twisted the fabric of her pants even tighter in her hand.

"Then she took off my shirt and...that was it. She didn't even say my name, she just...looked at me, got really pale, and...fled."

"Fled?" Rukia asked.

He let out another dark half-laugh. "Best word for it," he said. "She jumped off the bed, grabbed her coat, stammered--I have no clue what the hell she said, she was out the door so fast. I barely got her name out." He hunched over more. "I tried callin' her, she wouldn't pick up. I tried a coupla times. But...that was it.” He shook his hea. “Heh. Some first experience."

"Yes, quite traumatic," Rukia said distantly. She felt like she should know why this girl would run from Ichigo, but she could think of nothing. Then again, she was not even sure she had seen him without his shirt on. Once, during his recovery, they had all gone to the beach, but even then he had worn a shirt. An open shirt, yes--she had admired the results of his training--but she could not remember any jarring sort of deformity.

"So ya get it now? Will ya leave me alone?"

"Actually, Ichigo..."

"Huh?"

"Why did she flee?"

He straightened up slowly. His head turned a little. "You...you don't know?"

"I cannot think of a reason," she said, and tried not to fidget.

His head turned more, so she could see the disbelief on his face. "You really don't have a clue."

"No, I don't," she said, lifting her chin a little.

He looked away and let out something that sounded like a giggle.

"Ichigo?"

The sound came again. It was definitely a laugh, but a bitter and cracked one, as if something in his brain had snapped.

"Ichigo, what is your..."

He stood up and let the blanket fall from his shoulders. "Does that answer your question?" he snapped.

She looked up at his back. It was, to her eye, a very nice back. Ichigo had always been on the thin and wiry side, but as he stumbled towards adulthood he had filled out a little more here, a little more there. His shoulders would never be as broad as Chad's or Renji's, but they had broadened; his muscles would never be defined as, say, Iba's, but they were certainly evident. He would never fully embody the muscular type of her brother or even his father, but no one would question his ability just by looking at him. She felt his power slide out into the room for a moment, like a burst of emotion, then retract and cling to his skin, a black film spangled with gold to her inner eye.

"Well?" he asked through gritted teeth.

She stood up and stepped onto the bed, moving over to him. She stood just behind him and reached out, her fingers brushing the air over his shoulders. Up close, she had a better idea, but it seemed strange to say it. Yet..."The scars?" she asked.

His head cocked back towards her. "It took you that long to figure it out?" he asked roughly.

She studied his back for another moment. For someone barely out of childhood, he did certainly have a lot of scars. Of many different varieties as well: raised and flat, puckered and smooth, visible and quite faint. His left shoulder alone was a virtual handbook on how skin could scar. "They do not stand out to me," she said.

His head nearly twisted all the way around. "What do you mean?" he asked.

She couldn't resist; she had to touch one. She selected a thin gash on his shoulder and smoothed her fingers over it, feeling the difference in texture she could see. "What are you DOING?" he snapped.

"I am touching this scar," she said. "Is that a problem?"

"YES."

She deliberately ran her fingers over it again, pressing lightly into the skin. The muscles of his neck tightened. "Rukia..."

"It is only a scar, Ichigo."

"Yeah, well apparently it's a big deal," he grumbled.

"To her, perhaps," she said. "Though I don't understand her reaction at all."

He was quiet for a moment, and she could feel the unease flicker over his skin. "What?" she asked.

"I--uh, well..."

"If this is leading into you telling her you were shinigami..."

"No!" he barked. More quietly, he added, "Hell no. I got enough lectures on that. And..."

She pressed harder into his skin. "And..?"

"The hair already makes me enough of a freak," he said. "I ain't gonna tell her something that'd make it worse." He bunched his shoulders as if trying to get her fingers off him, but she didn't move.

Sometimes she forgot how human Ichigo could be. "So the scars make you a freak, do they?" she asked, and there was ice in her voice.

He was quiet for long enough that she wondered if he would respond. When he did, his voice was rough again. "Yeah. Hell yeah. Look at them!"

"I am," she said, and her eyes dipped down along his back, back up to his shoulders. She tried, for a moment, to pull the scars off his skin, to leave the skin smooth. It didn't work. It wasn't him.

"There's no way to explain them," he said, running one hand through his hair and almost smacking her in the face.

"An accident? A fight?" she said. "Both are plausible."

"Both are SHIT, Rukia. What’d I do, get into a fight with a lawnmower? And they don't look like accident scars. There's too many for that."

"But there is an explanation," she said.

"Not one I could..."

"No. She had an explanation, or she wouldn't have run. She would've asked." Her other hand trailed up the air above his back, fingertips dipping close to touching his spine. "So what was it?"

"To have all of these?" He snorted. "Gang stuff, I bet. With the hair and..."

"...your attitude," she filled in.

"Yeah, that too." He shook his head a little.

"But what about your lack of tattoos? Or the..."

"How the hell am I supposed to know, Rukia?" he growled. "I told you, she took one look and was gone. She couldn't have flashed out of here faster if she'd had shunpo, all right? So I don't know what the hell went through her mind, and..."

"But you care."

"Well..."

"You care what she thinks," she said again, barely biting back what that stupid human girl thinks.

The words settled on the air between them, and Rukia could almost see them, flashing neon bright between the two of them. Of course he cares, she thought. They were dating. They planned to have intercourse. To go so far--of course he cares.

But it was so damn stupid! And it was wrong, all wrong. To revile his scars...

She stepped back from him, the bedsprings crunching under her feet. His head came up a little. "Rukia, what..."

"Shut up and stay still," she said. She slid her sword from her sash, held her for a moment, then set her down on the bed.

"What are you..."

"Quiet!" she snapped. She stroked the sword sheath for a moment before standing straight again. "It would be unwise for her to touch you," she said.

"Her? Who?"

"It is of no matter," she said, moving to stand behind him again. With her on the bed and him on the floor, she had less distance to glare up at him, no matter how much he had grown in the past few years. She savored that for a moment, then said, "You are not in the mood for advice, are you, Ichigo?"

"What sort of advice is there? 'Don't worry, it won't happen again?' Bull--"

"As I said, you are not in the mood for advice," she said. "But that does not mean you cannot listen and learn."

His head started to turn. She reached up and pushed it to face the front again. "Listen," she said, "and learn."

"I realize you put stock in this human girl's reaction," she said. "What you must realize, Ichigo, is that in this matter, she is a fool. And so are you."

His power seemed to breathe through the room in sharp motion that tugged at something in her chest. "What?"

"She is a fool to disrespect your scars," she said, voice calm. "And you are a fool to accept such disrespect."

"Rukia--" His voice was a warning.

"Be quiet," she said, voice hard. "Be quiet and listen, and perhaps you will learn something."

"What? Some crazy shinigami thing? I don't need--"

She cut him off. "Yes, it is a shinigami thing. We shinigami--WE, Ichigo--have a tradition of respecting scars. To us, they represent the marks of a most noble calling. We shinigami were created as the guardians of the dead, their guides and protectors. The scars we bear, marks like these," she ghosted her hand over his back, up to his shoulder, "are our medals and recognition. They are the reminder that it is our flesh that stands between the dead and the living, between the whole and the fallen. We are the only ones, Ichigo! And no matter what prowess you have, you will never escape unmarked." She placed her hand on his shoulder scars and felt a sympathetic ache in her own. "All wounds scar. You should know that."

"But--"

"All wounds," she said. "Those Orihime healed before she came into the prime of her power are still there, are they not? If you cannot return the skin to the time before it is cut, then it will be marked. It will show. And you should be proud of those marks."

"And she should have respected them."

He took a breath, and this time, she let him speak. "She didn't know that, though. And they're still..."

"Ugly?" She shook her head. "If she thought that such marks on the outside meant you were dark and twisted on the inside, then she didn't know you."

He drew in a sharp breath.

"And Ichigo...these scars tell of who you are, of what you've done. Are you so ashamed of that? Are you ashamed of what you've done?"

"No." It came out quick, petulant.

She stoked her fingers along the line of his shoulder. "Have you forgotten your own story, Ichigo?" she asked, voice low.

She stroked a faint gash on the outer part of his shoulder. "Kon. This is from when you saved Kon." She moved inward, touching a wide, jagged edge. "Renji. The first sword wound you took from his blade." She reached over and touched the wide edge on his other shoulder. "And the second."

She traced her hand down his back, finding the upper scar. "From my brother," she said, pushing in on the skin. She slid her finger down his spine and over slightly, finding the second exit wound. "This, as well. One to take my powers back. One to destroy your power completely. But that didn't stop you," she said. "None of these wounds stopped you."

She reached for his shoulder again, found among the tangles another edged mark. "Renji, on the steps of the Inner Circle. A fight I did not see, but heard and felt, in the echoes of the clash of your power." Her hand drifted over his shoulder and down, to the start of a wide slice across his body. "And this, too, a wound that should've killed you but did not."

Her palm skated up over his shoulder and down, down across the shoulder blade to his left side, where another sharp gash stood out. "Kenpachi. Another wound that should've killed, but didn't." She smoothed her hand up the center of his back to his neck, then ran it to his right shoulder and back across to his left. "My brother, again, in both of these scars. Hard wounds, yet you stood against them."

She spread her fingers and trailed her hand, flat, across his shoulders, down the two sides of his back. "Other wounds I did not see, but know, by their traces. Zangetsu and my brother and Renji and..." She touched a blot on the left side of his back, a mark that seemed far too small and keen. "Aizen."

He exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath. She had not noticed, not with the play of scar, skin and muscle under her hand.

"These scars are your story," she repeated, "etched on you like a second memory. Like memory, they may fade, but are never quite gone. Never quite forgotten." She smoothed her thumb over the scar from Aizen. "They are not pretty, but not all memory is. They mark you, and always will. But each of these scars," she pulled her hand from his back, "represents a tenth of the lives you have saved. Because you stood and did not fall, and let your body be your shield as much as your sword." Her fist curled at her side. "And that's what she should've respected."

He said nothing. His breathing was funny, though--it kept catching here and there, like it had to jump a barrier in his throat. She took a breath of her own, then said, "Turn around."

It was almost a surprise when he did. It was not a surprise, though, that his head was down, his eyes hooded.

"Do you remember your story, Ichigo?" she said.

He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "But...she never knew it." His head dropped a little. "So it doesn't matter, does it?"

She nearly ground her teeth. Oh...you stupid...

"Did you ever treat this woman with anything less than respect, Ichigo?" she asked.

"I don't think so," he mumbled.

"Did you ever give her any reason to think you were anything but the giant idiot you are?"

"Oi," he said, head coming up.

"Did you?"

His mouth twisted. "If you mean what I think you mean, then...no."

She slapped her palm against his chest. "So why, why the hell would you think it doesn't matter?"

"I don't--"

"Fool! You haven't been listening!" She smacked his chest again, lighter. "You think this story is just in your scars? You think this is just a story of you as a shinigami? You think it doesn't carry over?" She wanted to beat her fist against his chest, but checked herself. "I told you, these scars tell who you are. Not what, WHO."

"So who am I?" he asked, voice rising.

"A BIG IDIOT," she shouted. "A BIG, STUPID, IDIOT WHO NEVER DOES WHAT HE'S SUPPOSED TO, WHO NEVER LISTENS, AND WHO NEVER, EVER STOPS!" Just in case the shouting wasn’t enough emphasis, she smacked her hand into his chest again.

She didn't have to look to see the confusion on his face. She could feel it in skin, in the way his power frizzed and fritzed as if to draw a big question mark around her hand.

She let her hand fall from his skin, and her fingers curled at her side. She felt her body's urge to shake with emotion, with anger and frustration. She knew, if she looked up, what she would see. She knew that if she looked long enough, she would see the start of a new set of inner scars. It made her angry-no, furious, both at the girl for her unthinking incompetence and at Ichigo for being so seduced by that not to realize how wrong she was. That better opinion she'd had of this partner had been steadily eroded away, and now it vanished, sublimated into a cloud of steam.

But if one stupid human girl could fuck it up, then couldn’t she, as a representative of his other half, set it right?

She raised her head slowly, her eyes tracking up his chest. She wondered why she hadn’t remembered it being this nice. For a moment, she didn’t even see the scars, and she wondered how that girl, upon seeing this, could only see the marks.

In the next blink, they shaded in, and she saw how. If Ichigo's back was a beginner's textbook, then this was the advanced course.

She didn't let her eyes widen, though; she kept on until she was looking him directly in the face.

"If she had known you," she said, "then she would've respected your scars."

His brow crinkled. "You keep saying that."

"Because it's true, fool," she said, moving her hand to rest over the top center scar, the one from her brother. "You bear no tattoos. You have no missing joints. You aren't a gangster." She slid her hand down to rest over his abdomen, over the second broad scar there. "If she knew you, then she wouldn't have seen these as some sort of secret. She would've known what they meant. And she would've respected them."

His eyes narrowed. "You keep saying 'respect'. Respect them how, Rukia?"

She stared at him for a long moment, and took stock within herself. If it had been anyone else, they would've known exactly what she meant by respect. But this was Ichigo, and while his stupidity had served him in the past, it could do nothing but hurt him now.

The only question was--how far was she willing to take this lesson? She had stopped truly being his mentor years ago; she was under no onus to continue teaching him now. They were supposed to be partners.

But, she reflected, what is a partner but someone who trades off being teacher and student, depending on the day? We have learned much from each other, Ichigo. Am I afraid to teach you something else?

Fear. No. The Kuchiki did not know fear.

Nor did the Kuchiki ever balk at teaching an idiot a lesson.

"Watch," she said. "This is respect."

She pulled her hand from his chest, leaned in, and pressed her mouth to his scar.

"RUKIA...!"

"Shut up," she mouthed against his skin. "You wanted to know what respect was..." She pulled back a little and pressed her mouth to the top of the scar. "...so just watch."

"Rukia..."

"Just. Watch."

She flicked her tongue against the edge of the scar, tasting the separation of skin there. This was what had to be done, but she felt there was something off about it. Something...

Ah. She was starting in the wrong place.

She pulled back from his chest and shifted over until she could put her mouth to his shoulder. "Kon," she said, and pressed her lips to the faint, wide slice at the outer edge of his shoulder. She touched her tongue to the edge of it, then ran it over his skin until she touched a jagged, flat mark.

"Renji," she said. "The first."

She ran her tongue over it in a slow, broad stroke, making a little circle with the tip of her tongue at each end.

She pulled back a little, and shifted in front of him to find the other scar, as jagged yet narrower. "Renji, the second," she said, and traced the edges of the scar with her tongue. She closed her mouth over the farthest skin she could reach, and sucking ever so lightly, ran it back to the center of the scar. She pressed her mouth in there, enough to make the skin bow under the pressure, then moved back.

"This is respect," she said, mouth hovering above his skin as she dropped a little, moving towards that central chest scar.

"Respect, huh?" One hand settled on her shoulder, her sword arm. "Feels a lot like...licking."

"Fool," she muttered. She pressed her mouth again into the center of that central scar, pressed and held. "You say that as if it is some small thing." She flicked her tongue against the skin, leaving a small, wet stroke in the middle. She moved up to the top edge and let her tongue and lips trace it down to the side, then across and down more.

"It, uh, isn't?" There was that odd catch again, now in his voice and his breathing.

"It isn't," she said, voice almost solemn as she brushed her lips across the lower edge of the scar. "My brother,” she whispered there, and his grip tightened on her shoulder.

She inched lower as slowly as she could, mouth tracing a path down skin and muscle to find the second scar. The skin seemed more textured here than the others--location, she assumed--and she explored it with her mouth and tongue, in wet brushes and soft, thin lines.

She found herself fascinated by the edges, the movement from skin creased by a sword to skin creased by muscle, the change from hairless inside to the slight, small hairs outside. She rested her hands on his waist as she worked, covering the scar thoroughly. What lay behind it, on the soul level, had once been her power. That, she thought, deserved extra respect.

His hand tightened and relaxed on her shoulder. She could see his other hand tense and curl to the side, and once, timidly, it brushed a bit of hair from her face before he pulled it back.

"My brother, again," she whispered when she had finished. She rested her head there for a moment, to feel him breathe, his power breathe.

Then she pulled her cheek from his skin and turned her head, dropping down to one knee as she did so. She reached out and snagged his hand, pulling it down closer to her.

"Ikkaku," she whispered, then ran her tongue from the thumb side of his wrist up and across his arm. She stood slowly as she did so, taking care to keep her tongue firmly on the faint scar there. She followed it up to his elbow, then drew a thick, straight line from there to his shoulder with the flat of her tongue. She pressed her lips softly against the joint, against the scar lost in the midst of scars, and again whispered, "Ikkaku."

She licked in short lines across his shoulder, touching the yet unassigned scars there, as if reassuring them that their time for respect would also come. She pulled her mouth away from his skin to cross the space of his collar bone, then moved in against when she found the distinctive wedge slice of Renji's sword. She wet her mouth, then laid it gently against that mark. "Renji," she said. She licked the bottom edge, then dropped her tongue down to the other distinct wedge mark below his shoulder. "Renji, again," she said, and ran her tongue broadly across it. She licked it once more, then found the beginning of the slice across his chest, left shoulder to right hip. She moved down and over it carefully, smudging it with her mouth at regular intervals. Ichigo's skin had been warm to start, but now it had gotten warmer, as if he was somehow heating from the inside.

She paused at the mark on his hip and murmured, "Renji, the last," before leaving a wide, wet flourish on it.

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, to swallow against the thin dryness in her throat. Ichigo's breathing had also changed, quickened, with those stumbles seeming to come with every breath. His power pulsed under his skin--perhaps that was why it had become so warm--and she could feel it especially in the points where his hand gripped her shoulder. She frowned and rolled her shoulder slightly, loosening his grip; she did not need a bruise there.

She turned her concentration back to his scars. Renji, her brother, Ikkaku, Renji again--ah, next would be Kenpachi. She turned slightly and rose a little, finding the dark slice. The tip of the sword had cut across his stomach before sliding in here, right around the lower ribs; and it was that scar, faded and smooth, that she brushed with her fingers before leaning in to brush it with her mouth. She licked her lips to make sure her mouth was wet, then smeared it across the mark, back and forth. She pulled back to inspect it, then leaned in to trace the wet path with her tongue. She lapped at it thoroughly; it was an older scar, yes, but it looked worse than some of the newer ones. She could see why Ichigo refrained from fighting Kenpachi even now, when he had more power on his side.

She pulled back from the wet scar, and softly said, "Kenpachi, the killer of Soul Society." She leaned in and gave it one final lick, as if to affirm how amazing it was that he had lived to scar.

She moved up a little more, and over, then licked up the swell of his chest. His fingers dug into her shoulder again, and his skin seemed to shiver against her mouth. She licked another line up, then over, feeling the tiny changes in his skin, the smaller, faded scars from other battles. When she had left a trail nearly over to his left shoulder, she pulled back and whispered, "Zangetsu."

She barely paused before moving to touch his shoulder again, closer into his neck. She licked at the razor thin scar there, then the one just below his collar, and another on his right shoulder. There were more, she knew, many more, but to get to them all would take...some sort of map. She pulled back a hair, and said, "My brother’s bankai."

The muscles of his upper body tensed and relaxed under her mouth, as if remembering all of those tiny cuts.

She moved close to his right shoulder, right near where the joint came together, and found the slightly puckered circle there. She pressed her mouth hard against it, then circled it with her tongue. She nipped lightly at it as she pulled back. "My brother, kidou," she said.

Ichigo let out a shuddery breath.

She moved quicker to the longer thin scar on this shoulder, matched with the longer, thin scar on his left shoulder. Each of these she licked hard and quick, leaving a thin wet smear on them. "My brother’s bankai, final stage,” she said, pressing her mouth into the end point of the left shoulder scar.

She moved back from his skin, took a quick breath, and dropped to her knees. The scar she sought just peeked out of the top of his sweats, but she would know that whispery edged look anywhere. She reached up and tugged the top of his pants down..

His hand practically convulsed on her shoulder, and he hissed, "Rukia, what--"

"The first scar left by Aizen," she said, pressing her thumb into it. "On the top of Soukyouku Hill, where he revealed how he betrayed Soul Society." She leaned and pressed her lips gently to it. "He tried to cut you in half. Why he didn't succeed...only he would know." She pressed the tip of her tongue into it, tasting the faintest trace of warped power there. "Or it was another whim." She looked up the line of his body from there, met his eyes for a second. "Whatever it was," she said, "it should also be remembered."

So said, she traced the top edge of the scar across his body, from the jut of one hip to the other. Her hands shifted across his body as she did so, and she felt him vibrate under the touch, and became even more aware of an additional heat and pressure that she'd been steadfastly ignoring.

She reached his other hip and paused.

Could she...?

It would be so easy, wouldn't it? To move from a lesson in respect to a lesson in...well, she wasn't sure what sort of lesson that would be. Except that he would enjoy it.

And so would she.

She could see it then, so clearly. How she would tug down his sweats even more to press her cheek against the bulge there. How she would deftly slide him into the open, cup him in both hands and breath across the wet head of his cock. How easy it would be to touch her lips to that point, to lick across the smooth and unscarred skin there, to taste the untasted, unknown to others length of his skin. To press him against her lips, to press him between her lips, to swallow him slowly until...

She closed her eyes for a moment. Damnit, Rukia, she thought. Why didn't you think about the risks of this lesson? He's only a boy, unable to help such reactions. You are shinigami. You should know better than to think of that now. This is about teaching him who he is. This is not about teaching him what you can do.

The last thing this lesson needs to be about is you.

She took a slow breath and let the cool air swell inside her, steady her. Only a few more scars, she thought. Only a few more.

She pushed away from his hip and rose on almost steady legs, her hands moving up from his hips to sit firmly on his waist. She would not let them fall again. No matter how much...

She blindly found the scar across his chest, the long and wicked looking cut. She started at the edge of it, and with slow, deliberate licks, made her way across. She would not show him how much she had just shaken herself. She would not show him that ragged edge of her control when he was apparently dangling from his own.

"Grimmjow," she said softly, and worked back to press her mouth to the center. "Second battle."

It was only a little ways down from that, the last scar she sought. It seemed so small in comparison to the others, an almost tiny mark hidden under wider slashes and cuts: barely two inches wide, less than an inch tall. She breathed on it for a moment, then brushed her right cheek against it, followed by the left. She did it again, and this time felt no shame in the lack of coolness in her features, in the warmth of her mouth on it.

Ichigo may have saved her with the others, but he had saved Soul Society with this one.

She kissed it gently a few more times, and finished with a soft lick. "Aizen," she said. "Final battle."

She traced the line of it with her finger, then followed that with her tongue, soft and light. Finished, she pulled back.

"These are your scars, Ichigo," she said, raising her head but not quite looking at him. "This is your story. And that," she brushed at the scar one last time before she let her hand fall, curling her fingers in tight at her side, "is what I meant by respect."

Foolish girl, she thought, look at him.

She raised her chin even more and met his eyes again. His face was flushed, his lips parted, but his eyes were a sink of emotions she couldn’t put a name to.

"And that is the respect you deserve," she said. She rolled her shoulder again to dislodge his hand, but he didn't move it.

Her eyes narrowed. "What..." she started.

"You missed one," he said.

She felt her mouth flatten. "With the amount of fighting you have done, I am not surprised," she said. "I thought to only single out your..." She paused. "I forgot," she said.

He nodded.

She touched the upper chest scar left by her brother, then ran her fingers up just a little bit until she found a smooth, round edge. She traced it lightly. "The Grand Fisher," she said. "I..."

"Oh," he said, and for a moment seemed unable to speak. "I…uh…yeah, that one, too.”

She gave him a suspicious look. "Too?" she said.

His hand moved from her shoulder and slid down her arm until he touched the back of her hand. "If I..."

"Enlighten me," she said, voice crisp.

He nodded and closed his fingers around her wrist. He moved her hand up and over, then pressed her fingers against the spot. In a moment, she could feel the rapid beat of his heart under her fingers.

"Here," he said, "on the first night. You put your sword right through here, and..."

She shook his hand off and leaned in. Yes, there was a scar there. It looked almost like the one Aizen had left, but the angle had been different, and so the point and blade had left a wider mark. She brushed her finger over it.

"Where I stabbed you," she said.

"Yes."

She traced the edges of the scar, and felt--something like an echo of her power, as if her sword were a thousand miles distant instead of right by her side. She looked up at him. "Your first sword scar."

"Changed my life," he said, voice soft.

His hand touched her hair where it edged her temple and slid back, pushing the hair out of her face. He did it on the other side of her face as well, then followed the line of her jaw. She looked up at him--not that far, and she couldn't help it--and saw his eyes were half-lidded, his face serious.

Oh, the fool, she thought.

She pushed his hand away from her chin and leaned into the scar. She touched it lightly with her lips and heard him suck in a deep breath. She did it once again, making sure she had the right dimensions in her head.

Then she bit down on it. Hard.

"OW WHAT THE--"

She eased back a little and touched it with the tip of her tongue. He shut up.

She leaned in and bit him again. Harder.

"BITCH WHAT ARE YOU--"

She backed away from him completely. "If a lesson is about respect, Ichigo," she said, "then isn't it best to be respectful?"

He glared at her. "How the fuck was that respectful?"

She knelt down, picked up Shirayuki, and stuck her through her sash. "Some scars are for remembrance," she said, "and some are for renewal." She made sure her sword was fast at her side, then turned and moved off the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"To not shirk my duty," she said. She started to move away, then paused. "Ichigo."

"What?"

"Make sure to get your badge out of the toilet before I see you next." She turned slightly to glare at him. "And I had better see you next time there is a Hollow."

His eyes narrowed. "Is that what this was about?"

"No," she said, looking away. "No, I already told you what it was about."

And so saying, she stepped through his wall and back into the world.

Second note: What Rukia says about wounds and healing is true (well, according to Wikipedia, and I'm sure I've read it somewhere else...) So while there is some exaggeration of severity, those marks...really should all be there.