Shards of Spirit: Mirror to Oblivion
OMGOMGOMG Finally got the first chapter of Shards of Spirit written~!!!! Some of you may have heard me rant about the fic I've been wanting to write for awhile, the one that's similar to The Cell or a twisted Alice in Wonderland, well this is IT, people! Hope you enjoy it, it's gonna get nice and dark and juicy~
Shards of Spirit
Fandom: Bleach
Characters: Ichigo X Rukia
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, now go read.
Spoilers: Up to current arc.
Summary:Do we ever get a second chance? An option to redo what we did wrong? And if we did, would we know what to do when it was given to us? When a mistake threatens to cost Ichigo the thing he never realized was most important, how far will he go to get it back?
Gravely injured, hovering at the brink of death, Rukia remains trapped within her mind, a prisoner to her own inner demons, while Ichigo, determined to restore her, faces not only her own darkness but the fears and illusions in his own heart by journeying into her mind itself to find her and bring the pieces of her soul back together.
Sandaled feet impacted tile with a thump, pushing off again into a long stride that somehow lacked the usual grace with which the owner of said foot usually moved. Airborne again, arms tightened further around the smaller form clutched so tightly to his chest, eyes flickering back and forth from the path ahead over the rooftops to the still body and the blood that he could feel seeping through heavy fabric. Ichigo's jaw tensed as teeth ground together, ruthlessly crushing nerves that threatened to flutter up and interfere. No, right now was not the time for worry, or the time to be thinking about all the bad possibilities that could happen. He could do that later. Or... he could yell at her later over the fact that he'd even had to worry in the first place, and then yell at her some more about all the things that could have happened. Because they weren't going to happen. Not now, now if he had anything to say about it. Which he was relatively certain he did. And if someone tried to say different... well, he'd worry about that then.
Sparing another glance down at the unconscious girl, he mentally kicked himself yet again for having been so stupid. He'd let this happen, he'd failed to protect her yet again. Just like that first abortive fight with Grimmjow, it was the same all over again. Watching helplessly, like an impotent fool, as she took the hit that by all rights should have been his. Stifling a growl as he pushed off yet another rooftop, Ichigo mentally calculated the distance to Urahara's. He could make it. He had to.
Rukia... I'm such a fucking idiot... why the hell didn't you get out of the damned way?!
It was really pointless to be blaming her, as much as he hated to admit it -- she was always convinced that everything was his fault, why should he waste the chance to give back the same -- because his conscience -- damn the infernal thing, getting in the way -- wouldn't let him slink away from the fact that, regardless of the number of times she shoved him away and beat on him and declared in that haughty manner of hers that she needed exactly zero degrees of aid from him, he was supposed to protect her. Was going to protect her. Just like he'd promised.
Nothing was supposed to happen this way. Not her blood that he could -- with an even more worried countenance -- feel dripping slowly down his arm to his elbow, sleeve already sticky and damp where the crimson fluid that held her life was soaking into the material. Not the deathly still and pale way she lay in his arms, looking so small, so frail, so different from the strong indomitable Rukia he knew. But things didn't always go the way you'd planned them to, that little sarcastic portion of the back of his mind commented snidely. Ichigo hated that portion of his brain, he wanted to rip it free and make it suffer, make it beg for mercy and then deny it that. Maybe then it would assuage the sick, sinking feeling that was rapidly pooling in his gut.
But even moreso than the situation, it was the Hollow's last words that were haunting him. They had rung with an eerie weight to them, an indefinable something sending little chills crawling up his spine even as he'd watched Zangetsu's blade cleave the bloodied mask in two, heard the ear-splitting screech as the creature surrendered it's hold on life and faded into the souls it had once been.
"You think you've won, shinigami? You're too late. You may heal her wounds... but you've still lost her in the end. Just wait and see..."
Ichigo hadn't bothered with trying to figure out what the words meant, there hadn't been time. Hell, there hadn't even been enough time for him to properly figure out exactly what had happened. It had been a simple hunt, normal, every-day. They'd squared off against it together, even though he'd snarled that he could handle it and she'd snapped back that she wasn't about to let her own skills go to waste because he needed to prove the size of his equipment. But then, she'd frozen. Violet eyes widening, hands tightening on her zanpakutou's hilt, knuckles whitening as a tremor had crept into her frame. He'd never seen her tremble, not once that he could remember, but rather then taking the time to ponder it, he'd snarled something scathing and dispatched the thing himself. At least that had shut it up, whatever it was saying to her. Something about how she'd share the same fate as Kaien.
He had no idea what or who "Kaien" was, but obviously Rukia did, given her reaction. He'd made a mental note -- amidst rounding on her and snarling at her about standing there like an idiot and being useless -- to ask her about it later. Of course, that had been cut off by her foot meeting his shin as she yelled back at him and things quickly devolved into one of their usual screaming matches. Until... the flare of reiatsu had been the only warning, the only flicker of thought that anything was wrong. And then the Hollow had come, so sudden and stealthily that he'd had no time to react, could only watch in horror as the hole ripped open in the air behind her, and the clawed, spiked arm shot out, punching cleanly through her right shoulder and upper chest.
He'd reached for Zangetsu as her eyes widened in shocked horror as she was lifted up and tossed aside like a ragdoll to land in a bloody heap on the pavement, vermilion rapidly pooling beneath her. That was when reason had left the building and he honestly didn't remember much of what happened next, only that the Hollow was much worse off and nearly dead within a matter of seconds as he'd felt the energy of his bankai sweep over him -- never mind that something like this was really not even worth that much power, it felt good -- and something in him had almost wanted to gloat as he'd leveled the killing blow, barely heeding the words it hissed from bloodied teeth. At least... he hadn't heeded them at first. Now they seemed almost like a death knell.
Shifting Rukia in his arms, his eyes unerringly picked out the destined roof, only a few hundred yards away, and he picked up the pace, knowing full well they were leaving a trail of blood behind them. Skidding to a stop, he all levied a foot against the door, kicking it open and hollering for some help. If he was lucky, there was a pair of geta and a striped had nearby. Or at least Yoruichi, she could probably be helpful. She'd helped Inoue, after all, when she'd been so injured by Yammy and Ulquiorra.
His prayers -- if they could really be called that -- were blessedly answered by the near-immediate appearance of not one but both of them, liberating Rukia from his arms in a heartbeat while Tessai all but tackled him to the ground to ensure the blood coating his torso wasn't in any way his. And then time seemed to slow down, or at least it did in Ichigo's mind, the seconds ticking by so indeterminably long, each one like an hour as he stood there, roiling in his own helplessness, fists clenched by his side. There was nothing, nothing at all that he could do. Just wait.
Brown eyes barely registered when Inoue brushed past him -- he'd forgotten that she lived so near here, they'd probably called her in -- and he only spared enough time to kick and then grind the heel of his foot onto Kon's head when the stuffed animal tried to cling to his leg and wail something about "Nee-san". Rather, they stayed trained on the still so silent figure lying on the futon, glued to the slow, gentle rise and fall of her chest. It wasn't a fatal wound, it was too high and not close enough to any vital organs, the only real danger was bloodloss. At least... that's what the logical portion of his mind kept repeating. That portion that had helped his father oversee so many treatments, that had watched as flesh was stitched together and bleeding abated.
It would have helped if that part of his brain had really been able to make him feel any better. Unfortunately, he wasn't that lucky, standing there in the doorway, the golden glow from Inoue's power casting sunset shadows across his face, deepening the lines drawn into his brow as his scowl furrowed even further, worry and unease warring with the normal sullen expression for a moment. He stayed like that for hours, far past when she shold have woken up. She should have woken up, Inoue had fixed it, had returned the injuries to their prior nonexistent state, there was no reason why pale eyelids still remained closed, why the only motion was still that even tempo of breaths that made their way slowly into her lungs.
Reaching out an arm, he snagged Yoruichi's sleeve as the dark-skinned woman slipped past, narrowing amber gaze at her. He didn't dare yank on her arm, as much as he wanted to -- he'd learned the hard way that Shihouin Yoruichi was, is, and would always be faster than he was, and seeing the way she and Urahara fought... well, he knew better than to push his luck.
"Why the hell won't she wake up? Inoue fixed everything, didn't she?"
Yoruichi paused, glancing away for a moment before she relaxed with a sigh, turning to face him. Shrugging off his grip, she folded slim arms across her chest to level a narrowed golden gaze at him. It wouldn't do to keep him in the dark, he'd find out sooner or later. And she'd have to listen to him whine. So might as well be sooner.
"She fixed everything she could, Ichigo. Some things... can't be healed that easily. We did all we could, but... it was just too late, I guess."
Brown eyes widened before narrowing into a scowl as his fingers twitched, itching to grab her, to shove her back against the wall and demand that she explain, that she take it back, tell him the truth and stop toying with things. But the worst of it was that he knew she wasn't joking, wasn't making light of the situation. Even if he hadn't been able to tell by the even and level way gilded irises burned into his, that cold knot in the pit of his stomach -- the one that had stubbornly refused to leave -- only seemed to clench tighter, telling him in not so many words, that everything she said was true.
"It's her soul, Ichigo. There's... something wrong with it. It's like a mirror, that's been broken. And there's something, whatever it is that broke it, that's interfering, keeping those pieces from rejoining. Eventually... they'll just crumble away. And there's nothing we can do about it. I'm sorry."
Sliding past him, she spared a last glance over her shoulder, watching him as he just stood there, face unreadable, hands by his side. Shoulders trembled slightly as his fingers curled into a fist before his arm lashed out, slamming into the paneled wood of the wall with enough force to rattle the windows, his entire frame shaking slightly with supressed anger. Or... anger and something else, perhaps. With a sigh, the dark-haired shinigami continued on her way down the hall. Kisuke. Kisuke would know what to do. He always seemed to.
Shards of Spirit
Fandom: Bleach
Characters: Ichigo X Rukia
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, now go read.
Spoilers: Up to current arc.
Summary:Do we ever get a second chance? An option to redo what we did wrong? And if we did, would we know what to do when it was given to us? When a mistake threatens to cost Ichigo the thing he never realized was most important, how far will he go to get it back?
Gravely injured, hovering at the brink of death, Rukia remains trapped within her mind, a prisoner to her own inner demons, while Ichigo, determined to restore her, faces not only her own darkness but the fears and illusions in his own heart by journeying into her mind itself to find her and bring the pieces of her soul back together.
Sandaled feet impacted tile with a thump, pushing off again into a long stride that somehow lacked the usual grace with which the owner of said foot usually moved. Airborne again, arms tightened further around the smaller form clutched so tightly to his chest, eyes flickering back and forth from the path ahead over the rooftops to the still body and the blood that he could feel seeping through heavy fabric. Ichigo's jaw tensed as teeth ground together, ruthlessly crushing nerves that threatened to flutter up and interfere. No, right now was not the time for worry, or the time to be thinking about all the bad possibilities that could happen. He could do that later. Or... he could yell at her later over the fact that he'd even had to worry in the first place, and then yell at her some more about all the things that could have happened. Because they weren't going to happen. Not now, now if he had anything to say about it. Which he was relatively certain he did. And if someone tried to say different... well, he'd worry about that then.
Sparing another glance down at the unconscious girl, he mentally kicked himself yet again for having been so stupid. He'd let this happen, he'd failed to protect her yet again. Just like that first abortive fight with Grimmjow, it was the same all over again. Watching helplessly, like an impotent fool, as she took the hit that by all rights should have been his. Stifling a growl as he pushed off yet another rooftop, Ichigo mentally calculated the distance to Urahara's. He could make it. He had to.
Rukia... I'm such a fucking idiot... why the hell didn't you get out of the damned way?!
It was really pointless to be blaming her, as much as he hated to admit it -- she was always convinced that everything was his fault, why should he waste the chance to give back the same -- because his conscience -- damn the infernal thing, getting in the way -- wouldn't let him slink away from the fact that, regardless of the number of times she shoved him away and beat on him and declared in that haughty manner of hers that she needed exactly zero degrees of aid from him, he was supposed to protect her. Was going to protect her. Just like he'd promised.
Nothing was supposed to happen this way. Not her blood that he could -- with an even more worried countenance -- feel dripping slowly down his arm to his elbow, sleeve already sticky and damp where the crimson fluid that held her life was soaking into the material. Not the deathly still and pale way she lay in his arms, looking so small, so frail, so different from the strong indomitable Rukia he knew. But things didn't always go the way you'd planned them to, that little sarcastic portion of the back of his mind commented snidely. Ichigo hated that portion of his brain, he wanted to rip it free and make it suffer, make it beg for mercy and then deny it that. Maybe then it would assuage the sick, sinking feeling that was rapidly pooling in his gut.
But even moreso than the situation, it was the Hollow's last words that were haunting him. They had rung with an eerie weight to them, an indefinable something sending little chills crawling up his spine even as he'd watched Zangetsu's blade cleave the bloodied mask in two, heard the ear-splitting screech as the creature surrendered it's hold on life and faded into the souls it had once been.
"You think you've won, shinigami? You're too late. You may heal her wounds... but you've still lost her in the end. Just wait and see..."
Ichigo hadn't bothered with trying to figure out what the words meant, there hadn't been time. Hell, there hadn't even been enough time for him to properly figure out exactly what had happened. It had been a simple hunt, normal, every-day. They'd squared off against it together, even though he'd snarled that he could handle it and she'd snapped back that she wasn't about to let her own skills go to waste because he needed to prove the size of his equipment. But then, she'd frozen. Violet eyes widening, hands tightening on her zanpakutou's hilt, knuckles whitening as a tremor had crept into her frame. He'd never seen her tremble, not once that he could remember, but rather then taking the time to ponder it, he'd snarled something scathing and dispatched the thing himself. At least that had shut it up, whatever it was saying to her. Something about how she'd share the same fate as Kaien.
He had no idea what or who "Kaien" was, but obviously Rukia did, given her reaction. He'd made a mental note -- amidst rounding on her and snarling at her about standing there like an idiot and being useless -- to ask her about it later. Of course, that had been cut off by her foot meeting his shin as she yelled back at him and things quickly devolved into one of their usual screaming matches. Until... the flare of reiatsu had been the only warning, the only flicker of thought that anything was wrong. And then the Hollow had come, so sudden and stealthily that he'd had no time to react, could only watch in horror as the hole ripped open in the air behind her, and the clawed, spiked arm shot out, punching cleanly through her right shoulder and upper chest.
He'd reached for Zangetsu as her eyes widened in shocked horror as she was lifted up and tossed aside like a ragdoll to land in a bloody heap on the pavement, vermilion rapidly pooling beneath her. That was when reason had left the building and he honestly didn't remember much of what happened next, only that the Hollow was much worse off and nearly dead within a matter of seconds as he'd felt the energy of his bankai sweep over him -- never mind that something like this was really not even worth that much power, it felt good -- and something in him had almost wanted to gloat as he'd leveled the killing blow, barely heeding the words it hissed from bloodied teeth. At least... he hadn't heeded them at first. Now they seemed almost like a death knell.
Shifting Rukia in his arms, his eyes unerringly picked out the destined roof, only a few hundred yards away, and he picked up the pace, knowing full well they were leaving a trail of blood behind them. Skidding to a stop, he all levied a foot against the door, kicking it open and hollering for some help. If he was lucky, there was a pair of geta and a striped had nearby. Or at least Yoruichi, she could probably be helpful. She'd helped Inoue, after all, when she'd been so injured by Yammy and Ulquiorra.
His prayers -- if they could really be called that -- were blessedly answered by the near-immediate appearance of not one but both of them, liberating Rukia from his arms in a heartbeat while Tessai all but tackled him to the ground to ensure the blood coating his torso wasn't in any way his. And then time seemed to slow down, or at least it did in Ichigo's mind, the seconds ticking by so indeterminably long, each one like an hour as he stood there, roiling in his own helplessness, fists clenched by his side. There was nothing, nothing at all that he could do. Just wait.
Brown eyes barely registered when Inoue brushed past him -- he'd forgotten that she lived so near here, they'd probably called her in -- and he only spared enough time to kick and then grind the heel of his foot onto Kon's head when the stuffed animal tried to cling to his leg and wail something about "Nee-san". Rather, they stayed trained on the still so silent figure lying on the futon, glued to the slow, gentle rise and fall of her chest. It wasn't a fatal wound, it was too high and not close enough to any vital organs, the only real danger was bloodloss. At least... that's what the logical portion of his mind kept repeating. That portion that had helped his father oversee so many treatments, that had watched as flesh was stitched together and bleeding abated.
It would have helped if that part of his brain had really been able to make him feel any better. Unfortunately, he wasn't that lucky, standing there in the doorway, the golden glow from Inoue's power casting sunset shadows across his face, deepening the lines drawn into his brow as his scowl furrowed even further, worry and unease warring with the normal sullen expression for a moment. He stayed like that for hours, far past when she shold have woken up. She should have woken up, Inoue had fixed it, had returned the injuries to their prior nonexistent state, there was no reason why pale eyelids still remained closed, why the only motion was still that even tempo of breaths that made their way slowly into her lungs.
Reaching out an arm, he snagged Yoruichi's sleeve as the dark-skinned woman slipped past, narrowing amber gaze at her. He didn't dare yank on her arm, as much as he wanted to -- he'd learned the hard way that Shihouin Yoruichi was, is, and would always be faster than he was, and seeing the way she and Urahara fought... well, he knew better than to push his luck.
"Why the hell won't she wake up? Inoue fixed everything, didn't she?"
Yoruichi paused, glancing away for a moment before she relaxed with a sigh, turning to face him. Shrugging off his grip, she folded slim arms across her chest to level a narrowed golden gaze at him. It wouldn't do to keep him in the dark, he'd find out sooner or later. And she'd have to listen to him whine. So might as well be sooner.
"She fixed everything she could, Ichigo. Some things... can't be healed that easily. We did all we could, but... it was just too late, I guess."
Brown eyes widened before narrowing into a scowl as his fingers twitched, itching to grab her, to shove her back against the wall and demand that she explain, that she take it back, tell him the truth and stop toying with things. But the worst of it was that he knew she wasn't joking, wasn't making light of the situation. Even if he hadn't been able to tell by the even and level way gilded irises burned into his, that cold knot in the pit of his stomach -- the one that had stubbornly refused to leave -- only seemed to clench tighter, telling him in not so many words, that everything she said was true.
"It's her soul, Ichigo. There's... something wrong with it. It's like a mirror, that's been broken. And there's something, whatever it is that broke it, that's interfering, keeping those pieces from rejoining. Eventually... they'll just crumble away. And there's nothing we can do about it. I'm sorry."
Sliding past him, she spared a last glance over her shoulder, watching him as he just stood there, face unreadable, hands by his side. Shoulders trembled slightly as his fingers curled into a fist before his arm lashed out, slamming into the paneled wood of the wall with enough force to rattle the windows, his entire frame shaking slightly with supressed anger. Or... anger and something else, perhaps. With a sigh, the dark-haired shinigami continued on her way down the hall. Kisuke. Kisuke would know what to do. He always seemed to.