Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Moving Forward ❯ To Transcend ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: melitza

In which Rukia dies and lives.

“We will move forward,” she said, and then everything faded to the brilliant white agony of her own death.

For thee I rose, now descend all alone

When Rukia died, Ichigo was already defeated, if not broken. Nnoitra was on his last legs, thanks to the unforeseen help of Nel. But he was still on his legs, and certainly wasn't down and out yet.

He had been prepared to rush to her the first time he sensed her fade, but then Ulquiorra had shown up and thwarted his haphazard rescue plan. But, though her reiatsu had weakened, it had lingered steadily at a certain point, serving as his constant source of sanity and warm reassurance somewhere in the back of his mind (heart?).

`Of course I'll stay safe. Idiot,' she had mocked him, in different words playing across different times. And though she didn't always stay safe, (he'd have rather her been selfish than so damn selfless, always throwing herself in the path of danger to spare others, but then he supposed she wouldn't have been Rukia) she had always stayed alive. She was stubborn (perhaps even on par with his own bullheadedness), and when she was fixated on a goal, there was no stopping her.

And so, he stayed, and he fought to free their friend, as he knew she would want him to. But the moment her reiatsu pulsed and then finished that downward spiral, fading irreversibly to nothing, Ichigo realized he had taken for granted that she was as fixated on returning to him as he was to her.

The logical part of his mind insisted that was a childish way of looking at it. Ones desire (or lack thereof) could not alone stave off death. But at that instant in time - when he realized it was too late, that he had taken too long, that she was gone - the logic receded to the despair and he knew if he couldn't blame someone (anyone else, even her), he would break.

Zangetsu dropped listlessly from his fingers, and watching the blade drop from the corner of his eye, he could not summon the strength to pick it up again. `I'm sorry, ossan,' he willed the sword to understand. `We lost.'

And this was a defeat from which they would not (could not) recover. For the second time in his life, Ichigo remembered what it meant to be truly, irrevocably broken.

Rebirth was a thousand times the agony of dying - the force and strain inflicted upon her soul by the hougyoku seared her, burning away everything she was while replacing it with cold steel. When her sluggishly beating heart finally stopped, she wanted to scream but could only lay there, eyes open and unseeing while the molten burned her from the inside out.

When she opened her eyes, there was another Arrancar looming over her, his sword out and ready to strike. And then, his blood was on her face and his head was at her feet but Rukia could not concentrate on either, but rather, was overwhelmed with sight and vision not her own flickering behind her eyes.

Of Chad, lying face down and still. Of Renji and Ishida, bruised and battered and broken and stumbling at the last. Of Inoue, held back and weeping.

Of Ichigo, kneeling and bleeding and broken, hair clasped in an Arrancar's hand as he prepared to deal the finishing blow. Sword strewn carelessly to the ground, eyes listless, but most pointedly, not fighting back.

The anger, fury, and disgust were overshadowed only to an inexplicable, overwhelming sense of loss that she did not fully understand, but certainly didn't have the time to examine.

Inoue was screaming his name over and over again, and in truth, the shrillness of her voice grated on his last nerves. She was his friend, and he certainly cared for her, but why could she not understand that it was over? Irrationally, he felt like lashing out at the useless girl - to say hurtful words as if they might help her understand.

Instead, he remained silent, repeating the realization, revisiting three words again and again as if he might wear them out and make them untrue if only he spent an eternity trying.

`Rukia is dead.'

`Rukia is dead.'

`Rukia is dead.'

It was selfish of him, perhaps, to kneel down and admit defeat rather than finish the rescue effort, but if he was honest with himself, the battle was already over. Chad was defeated. Renji and Ishida were close to it.

Rukia was dead.

And so was he.

Ichigo closed his eyes.

And Rukia flew on tendril wings of white spirit particles not her own, but reserved within her nonetheless. She did not think to question where the energy was coming from; that was idle musing left for a calmer time. For now, she simply accepted it in the same way she accepted the frenetic visions pounding in her head as truth and not delusion.

`Don't die,' she commanded silently, but when her silent pleas didn't reach him - when he still knelt and waited, placated, for the killing blow, her tone changed. `I won't let you die!'

When Kuchiki-san's reiatsu flickered and faded for the last time, the realization that the girl had died trying to save her hit Orihime like a fist in the stomach.

“Kuchiki-san…” She had meant to call it out, as if that might make some difference, might persuade the other girl not to go - but her throat rebelled and constricted, choking the syllables and dragging them to a harsh, tear-laden whisper.

`Kuchiki-san… died trying to save me,' Orihime realized, and her overactive mind was only too-quick to supply the names and faces of all the people who would be affected. Everyone had worked so hard to save the petite shinigami - it hadn't even been that long ago that they had almost lost her…

And now she was dead, because she had been unwilling to back down. Unwilling to abandon her.

The torrent of whirring mental faces shuddered and halted, stalled on one too-familiar face - one framed with wild orange locks. “Kurosaki-kun…” she murmured, and didn't need to wonder whether or not he already knew, because abruptly, the other teenager simply… gave up.

“Kurosaki-kun -“ she choked, both shocked and surprised as he bodily slammed to his knees. “Kurosaki-kun!” she tried again, louder this time, trying to warn him as Nnoitra lunged in on his sudden advantage, twining his fingers in the substitute-shinigami's hair and raising his weapon to strike. “Kurosaki-kun!” she screamed again and again around the tightening of the arrancar's arms around her ribs, in spite of the fact that she knew her voice could never reach him.

Her voice had never been able to reach him. Orihime realized that now with sudden pointed clarity, and the knowledge ached and burned like a pit in her chest.

And the only voice that ever could was now silenced, forever.

Beyond the pale horizon, a greaven silence

Cold bitter wind whipped furiously at his face, and for a moment, Ichigo thought it ironic that dying didn't hurt at all - just getting there did.

He wasn't sure whether there was supposed to be life after you're killed in soul-form, but when the hand clenched in his hair released, and the wind whooshed loudly and drowned out everything else, he certainly had to admit it was a surprise that there would be after-afterlife - and that it would be so cold.

But then wet warmth splashed on his face, and when he opened his eyes, it was not to some new majestic landscape, but rather to the barren wastelands of Hueco Mundo, and to blood, and to a white jacket flapping before him.

Nnoitra's arm lay severed on the ground, Nnoitra himself looking pale and shocked and several feet away -

And between the two, stood Rukia.

Even with her back turned to him, stiff and straight as she faced as the espada; even with her reiatsu flaring with such wild and foreign abandon so unlike her own, only barely tasting of her essence; even wearing a white jacket more similar to that of an arrancar's than a shinigami's; even without looking at him, he knew it was her.

His throat tightened, and he reached for her. He needed to touch her more than he needed to breathe. He was not embarrassed by the tears sliding down his cheeks.

“R - Rukia -“

Later, Orihime would not be embarrassed at all to admit that when Kuchiki-san quite literally descended from above to intervene between Kurosaki-kun and Nnoitra, she was quite positive she was an angel. Or a figment of her imagination. Or, perhaps, some new form of her power.

But when Nnoitra's arm went flying and she found herself wincing at the brutality, she knew it was not her will that saved Kurosaki-kun. And when she found herself staring numbly at the back of a stark-raven bob that was too-familiar even if the jacket was not, she was only that much more certain that she had finally snapped, as Tatsuki-san often teased she might.

“Kuchiki-san…” she whimpered, and her knees buckled beneath her when Tesla's support was withdrawn.

“Nnoitra-sama!” the arrancar screamed, but the quicksilver arc of his frantic lunge was transformed to artful ribbons of blood as Kuchiki-san whirled and neatly sliced him in two.

Such a neat, clean, and savage kill. Perfect in technique, and lacking in any hesitation - any weakness. “K - Kuchiki-san…” Orihime trembled, uncertain. The other girl had not even blinked - had not even hesitated before snuffing out another life.

Kurosaki-kun, of course, was more insistent upon being heard. His voice came a little louder - a little more urgent - as one battered hand clenched into Kuchiki's white sleeve.

“Rukia -“

Orihime was glad his back was turned to her. She thought her heart might break, if she saw the expression on his face as Kuchiki-san neatly yanked her cuff from his grip. Even seeing his face when he later recounted it (even seeing his face when he later recalled anything at all about their fated trip to Hueco Mundo) was enough to make her heart weep for him.

When the other girl tipped her head to address him, her gaze (now with opalescent, silvery-white irises that were not hers) was cool. “This is not the man I know you to be,” she hissed, and her eyes (those unreadable orbs that were not Rukia's) brushed right over him to Orihime.

Orihime was ashamed of the chill that wracked her spine when the woman who had died trying to save her (but she hadn't really died if she was here, right?) looked at her.

“Protect him,” Kuchiki-san ordered, and did not even wait for a reply. So great was her trust in Orihime - even greater than Orihime's trust in herself. Hadn't it been proven only moments before once and for all? Protecting - truly protecting, at the expense of anothers life - was an order she would always be innately incapable of.

But Kuchiki-san did not wait for Orihime's reply. Instead, she cast an odd look at the pristine, blood streaked white sword in her right hand, as if considering something. Then, resolutely, she announced, “These winter winds… they might lead you far away,” and when she swiped her sword, this time everything faded to white.

Rise for me, sooth my heart

The moment Rukia realized she not infallible was when Ichimaru Gin's zanpakuto pierced through her chest, bursting before her eyes in a spectacular spray of crimson that seemed all too eager to depart.

The moment Ichimaru Gin realized she was close enough to it, however, was when the last ditch underhanded stab at victory only elicited a relieved, almost giddy smile from her.

`It hurts… but somehow, I cannot bring myself to care.' It was a dizzying kind of realization, to see that her blood was still as red as it ever was. To see that it was not frozen solid in her veins, as it felt. Even though the elongated blade pierced dangerously close to her heart, she felt no particular worry over it, and couldn't quite place her finger on the reason why.

She easily lopped off the head of the arrancar she had been fighting, only slightly impatient with herself for having been distracted enough to not notice the former Captain's approach. But in the end, she found it didn't bother her too much. The reunion seemed fitting, somehow. She had always felt guilty that Byakuya had taken the Shinso's wound fated for her; this was almost like a reprieve - a way to rewrite their history.

She didn't even have a desire to pull herself from the blade, or to remove it from her chest at all. Instead, she was mesmerized by its sparkling ruby length before her, and she wanted nothing more than to touch it -

Reaching…

The blade flickered and dissipated beneath her tentative stroke, leaving melting swirls like so many quicksilver eddies in its wake. When Rukia saw this, she knew it was not for the first time, but rather the second, and her elated smile turned to a bitter frown in an instant.

“Bastard,” she hissed between clenched teeth, expecting something more to happen. But the tense moment slipped by, and there was no wrenching for power within her, and nor any other sign of him…

And so, she allowed herself to twist her neck and cast a cool, disinterested glance when she heard Ichimaru's disbelieving hiss of, “Mon…ster…”

She was furious, not at him but rather at her unconscious use of power so clearly not her own. But she didn't have the liberty of licking her own wounds first, and so, her scorn shifted easily towards the shocked looking traitor. “If I am a monster, then what does that make you, who would knowingly and deliberately betray God's soldiers?”

Even in the face of a hot scorn that was so utterly unlike her - even in the face of having had his zanpakuto disintegrated before his very eyes, he yet still reverted back to that snide, mocking tone. “Look at yourself, Rukia-chan. Your reiatsu is not that of a shinigami. You are not God's soldier anymore.”

He meant to rattle her - to pull a shroud from over her eyes and make her aghast at what she now was. He meant to manipulate her as he did everyone else - not to betray her loved ones, no, that was far too simple, far too plain cut. He took it a step further, always that extra effort, nurturing the seedlings of insecurity to fester and rot into self-betrayal and a shattered soul.

He meant to break her, and at one time, he might have succeeded. But Rukia was not looking as through a veil, and though the reiatsu swirling in mad tempest around her was not shinigami, she was not aghast. His uncertainty was the sweetest, headiest wine. “I am not God's soldier,” she repeated, acquiescent, and paused to roll the words on her tongue, weigh them - taste them.

Savor them.

“I am God's sword. God's right hand. God's justice.” Shirayuki was the wind, whispering seductively in her ears, thrumming in excitement and pleasure in her hand. “I am a tempest, sent to wash away all signs of you from this world.”

When she rotated her blade before her, she knew that Shirayuki's dances were too not enough for him. Fixated, she watched as the blade emitted a light and spiritual pressure both new and familiar. Rukia smiled, filled with content and agonizing longing all at once.

“I am Transcendence,” she concluded, calm smile still on her face even as she felt the color bleaching from her eyes, and the foreign power that was her now own concentrating and expounding even still. “And you, Ichimaru Gin… you, are no more.”

Read it? Review it!

I am desperate for criticism of my writing. I want to improve my style, narration, wording, characterization - everything and anything.

Cookies and hats off if you can guess where the italics come from before revealed at the end, probably of the next chapter. There should be anywhere from one to three more chapters, depending on how many reviews I get. ^_^

Advice for upcoming chapters is appreciated. I'm planning on taking it in sort of a dark and twisted direction, so let me know if you approve.

Author's Recommendations:

So, there are tons of ways this could have gone (or could go, continued). But I want to share with you all, so your lives will be complete (and you understand why I went this way). These are all in my favs, so check them out.

Breaking the Girl &Full Circle by Kilonji (and I hope you're still reading, Kilonji ^_^) are wonderful portrayals of what would happen if Rukia were captured and kept as a prisoner of war by Hueco Mundo. Real and disturbing and inspiring in the best kind of way. Good. Go read it.

Cold Rain by altersuperego explores an Arrancar Rukia, so I decided not to go in that direction. It's been done, and done beautifully. The world didn't need me to muddle it up. Check it out.

Waiting by MultipleCyrosis really delves into the GodsRealm concept. It's spectacular and mind-blowing. I had wondered on it myself, but that's a wonderful story, and I suppose the one that is closest to what I decided to do. Only not really. But sooo good.

And maybe drop a line and tell these authors I sent you, so next time I beg and plead for updates from them they promptly comply!