Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ It Felt Like Drowning ❯ 3 ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: c2t2 
Rukia's eyes are open
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 11.25.2012 | Pages: 1 | Words: 854 | Visits: 180 | Status: Work In Progress
Rukia's eyes are open
Anime/Manga: Bleach Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 11.25.2012 | Pages: 1 | Words: 854 | Visits: 180 | Status: Work In Progress
Title: It Felt Like Drowning
Author: c2t2Part 1.3
Standard disclaimer: I do not own Bleach and do not make money.
Arc 1
Chapter 3. Rukia’s eyes are open
Rukia remembered the first time she had truly seen Renji as a man.
Until that day, she thought of him as she always had. He was the brat she first met, only grown annoyingly tall. And then suddenly they were separated by unbreachable distance of caste and status and wealth. He slipped out of her life until she no longer knew where he was or what he was doing. She no longer knew him at all.
But ten years ago on a dark and windy autumn day, that had changed.
She was running errands for Ukitake-taicho, and had just finished delivering a message to Fourth. Losing both their vice-captain and third seat had left the division badly shorthanded.
A storm was brewing, and she wanted to get indoors before it hit. On her way back to the Thirteenth she ran into what seemed like half of the Eleventh. “Half” was a pretty good word, considering the condition they were in.
The shinigami of the Eleventh were famous for aggression, bragging, and arrogance, so the seated officers had to constantly defend their stations against challengers who had more muscle than brains. Rukia didn’t know it at the time, but one way the officers proved themselves was by taking the division – minus its captain and vice-captain – to an abandoned field for an all-out melee. Anyone unworthy of his position, and anyone especially unpopular, would be cut down immediately. Afterwards, the fighters who could still move dragged the ones who couldn’t to Fourth, trailing blood and pieces of their shredded uniforms behind them.
It was this grisly procession that Rukia stumbled into when she turned a corner in a narrow thoroughfare. Dodging through the bloody and half-naked crowd of men, she suddenly found herself face-to-stomach with someone she immediately recognized, but at the same time was utterly alien to her.
She knew it was him before she even looked up to his face. It wasn’t his height, since Rukia was so short she was stomach-height for many shinigami. Nor was it how heavily muscled this particular stomach was, since the Gotei 13 were military, and many of them, especially in the Eleventh, had obscene amounts of muscle. What Rukia recognized, even though she was seeing them for the first time, were the jagged tribal tattoos that ran the length of his body, visible even under the blood and dirt that caked his skin.
Rukia looked up into his face and didn’t recognize the person she saw there. The tie for his hair had not survived the brawl, and the matted and tangled locks swirled around his bare chest and shoulders. He was carrying an unconscious shinigami over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold, the body casting a shadow over a face already darkened with streams of drying blood. Even reflecting the storm-dark sky, his eyes glinted like light off a blade.
The eyes alone threw Rukia off balance. Renji had always been restless, but it had always been aimless and frustrated. She had never seen him focused, directed. What goal, she wondered, had he set for himself? What star had he decided to reach out and take for his own?
She didn’t know.
With that, Rukia saw Renji for the first time.
He was not a handsome man, she realized. Renji managed, somehow, to be both too muscular and too lanky at the same time. His frame was just too large.
His features were too sharp, the angles of his face too severe, for him to be traditionally handsome.
Even in the dim light, the color of his hair was distractingly bright. Jagged black tattoos covered every visible plane of his body, the patterns on any other creature would signal that the animal was poison, that he was lethal. It would signal that Renji’s serrated sword dripped deadly venom.
Renji was built to be a fighter, not a lover, his appearance designed to intimidate, not attract.
Why, then, did Rukia feel so powerfully drawn to him that her whole body shook with the desire to reach out and touch?
“Excuse me, Kuchiki-dono.” His voice was rough, but achingly familiar. He stepped around her and continued walking. He did not look back.
Rukia stood immobile for endless seconds before she could move. Then she sprinted to outrun the storm. But Rukia did not shed tears.
Tears meant the heart had defeated the body. To cry would prove that existence was meaningless. Nii-sama had drilled this into her very soul for thirty years. Rukia had not wept since Kaien’s death. She did not shed tears.
But oh, how she’d wanted to.
Author: c2t2Part 1.3
Standard disclaimer: I do not own Bleach and do not make money.
Arc 1
Chapter 3. Rukia’s eyes are open
Rukia remembered the first time she had truly seen Renji as a man.
Until that day, she thought of him as she always had. He was the brat she first met, only grown annoyingly tall. And then suddenly they were separated by unbreachable distance of caste and status and wealth. He slipped out of her life until she no longer knew where he was or what he was doing. She no longer knew him at all.
But ten years ago on a dark and windy autumn day, that had changed.
She was running errands for Ukitake-taicho, and had just finished delivering a message to Fourth. Losing both their vice-captain and third seat had left the division badly shorthanded.
A storm was brewing, and she wanted to get indoors before it hit. On her way back to the Thirteenth she ran into what seemed like half of the Eleventh. “Half” was a pretty good word, considering the condition they were in.
The shinigami of the Eleventh were famous for aggression, bragging, and arrogance, so the seated officers had to constantly defend their stations against challengers who had more muscle than brains. Rukia didn’t know it at the time, but one way the officers proved themselves was by taking the division – minus its captain and vice-captain – to an abandoned field for an all-out melee. Anyone unworthy of his position, and anyone especially unpopular, would be cut down immediately. Afterwards, the fighters who could still move dragged the ones who couldn’t to Fourth, trailing blood and pieces of their shredded uniforms behind them.
It was this grisly procession that Rukia stumbled into when she turned a corner in a narrow thoroughfare. Dodging through the bloody and half-naked crowd of men, she suddenly found herself face-to-stomach with someone she immediately recognized, but at the same time was utterly alien to her.
She knew it was him before she even looked up to his face. It wasn’t his height, since Rukia was so short she was stomach-height for many shinigami. Nor was it how heavily muscled this particular stomach was, since the Gotei 13 were military, and many of them, especially in the Eleventh, had obscene amounts of muscle. What Rukia recognized, even though she was seeing them for the first time, were the jagged tribal tattoos that ran the length of his body, visible even under the blood and dirt that caked his skin.
Rukia looked up into his face and didn’t recognize the person she saw there. The tie for his hair had not survived the brawl, and the matted and tangled locks swirled around his bare chest and shoulders. He was carrying an unconscious shinigami over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold, the body casting a shadow over a face already darkened with streams of drying blood. Even reflecting the storm-dark sky, his eyes glinted like light off a blade.
The eyes alone threw Rukia off balance. Renji had always been restless, but it had always been aimless and frustrated. She had never seen him focused, directed. What goal, she wondered, had he set for himself? What star had he decided to reach out and take for his own?
She didn’t know.
With that, Rukia saw Renji for the first time.
He was not a handsome man, she realized. Renji managed, somehow, to be both too muscular and too lanky at the same time. His frame was just too large.
His features were too sharp, the angles of his face too severe, for him to be traditionally handsome.
Even in the dim light, the color of his hair was distractingly bright. Jagged black tattoos covered every visible plane of his body, the patterns on any other creature would signal that the animal was poison, that he was lethal. It would signal that Renji’s serrated sword dripped deadly venom.
Renji was built to be a fighter, not a lover, his appearance designed to intimidate, not attract.
Why, then, did Rukia feel so powerfully drawn to him that her whole body shook with the desire to reach out and touch?
“Excuse me, Kuchiki-dono.” His voice was rough, but achingly familiar. He stepped around her and continued walking. He did not look back.
Rukia stood immobile for endless seconds before she could move. Then she sprinted to outrun the storm. But Rukia did not shed tears.
Tears meant the heart had defeated the body. To cry would prove that existence was meaningless. Nii-sama had drilled this into her very soul for thirty years. Rukia had not wept since Kaien’s death. She did not shed tears.
But oh, how she’d wanted to.