Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Moving Forward ❯ To End ( Chapter 8 )

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

By: melitza

In which all things must come to an end.

Warning: Violence.

A beautiful fluctuation of a strangely resonant reiatsu, and now they are simply here.

Their masks are not the organic, twisted visages like the Hollows' matted, bone-like ones. These masks are black and sleek and shiny, perfect and symmetrical, accented with openings that reveal eyes and mouths and glimpses of cheeks and chins. Their faces scream self-confidence beneath.

`Even God's soldiers hide their faces from the world?' She is oddly disappointed. Distantly, she recalls a time when she was proud and powerful and was able to show her face to the world when she fought for what she believed. Are Shinigami the only ones who do not feel the need to hide?

She stands and Kaien stands behind her. From the corner of her eye, she sees his face falter - sees him look from them to her and back again, confused, though the beginnings of betrayal had not yet begun to twinge within him. Suddenly, weeks of hiding in the real world start to blossom into dark and terrible sense. (Why the real world, when both Soul Society and Heuco Mundo were her domains? He must have imagined her sentimental. Only now must he realize how silly it was to paint her as something so soft, something so human.). Suddenly, the dozens of gentle commands for him to stay morphed into something other than longing for his presence. (To weaken him the same as her - to cripple them in slow, deaf dumb and blind bliss.)

She reasons the beginnings of understanding are planted in him now, and wonders sadly if he is pained by her betrayal. (It isn't a betrayal though; not really. She did not lie to him. They would be together.)

She half expects him to be angry with her, but then he moves forward as if to step between them and her, and she thinks she is actually thankful to have at least a small time left of his devotion. She wanted their judgment, not his. She edges him out before he can shield her, and bares her chest bravely to God's soldiers, refusing to back down. She meets their eyes, one at a time, and waits for this, the ultimate vindication, to fall.

The silence is unbearable.

“You said you were God's sword,” one finally drawls in a voice that is neither man nor woman, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders whether these creatures know everything - saw everything -

Something inside her quivers, falters. `They know my sin.' She smiles, tears stinging in her eyes. `If they know my sin… then they know what must be done.'

“But Swords are clean and pure and empty of these impurities, Rukia.” It does not surprise her that they know her name; the syllables are the least of what they know. They know her story; they know her fall - they know her sin.

It relieves her.

“He loves all his creatures, even the strayed ones, Rukia. The choice is yours. We can collar you - limit your powers, and allow you to stay as you are - or we can burn away everything you are - reforge you truly as God's sword.”

`Burn away everything I am…'

“Can you separate me from my sin?” she whispers, hoarsely, but the wording already lends the response. She doesn't deserve to be saved anyway, but she imagines the instinct to live is ingrained too deep to not at least ask.

“No.” There is neither apology nor hesitance in the reply. The creature (God's soldier, God's sword, God's archangel?) peers at her, and she wonders - if there was not a mask hiding its face, would see indifference or pity there? “They are too intertwined. Both would need to be destroyed.”

`Me and my sin.' The wracking of her chest was half sob, half laughter, and entirely mad. Of course she had known all along. Perhaps she had even hoped.

“What will it be, Rukia?” In the distance, she is aware of the flickering of reiatsu. The opening of Heaven's Gate is too large a surge of energy to go unnoticed, and others are coming. She feels them, and she imagines God's soldiers do as well - there is little time.

She shakes so hard that her ribs hurt, and she hiccups and chokes and moans. It's all so goddamn funny. “Do you even need to ask?” she gasps, throwing out her arms, spinning, laughing, screaming, crying. “Burn me away!”

(Burn me away, burn me away, burn my tallow and my ashes - burn my heart and my mind and my soul until not even my sin remains!)

One of God's soldiers moves, but Rukia has made a mistake in taking her attention from Kaien - when the angel lunges for her, he leaps between - grabs her by the face, far more roughly than he has ever touched her before - and when he slants his face over hers, locking their lips together, for the first time ever, it is he who controls their passing between her inner world and the outer one.

“These days together - the gentleness in your eyes, your promises - they were all deception, weren't they?”

When he looks into her eyes, it is an unspoken truth between them:

He could break her.

They are intertwined - and that was why this power was never meant to be. She had willingly accepted his sin along with his power, while he had gradually suckled away at the remains of her humanity. He is a part of her, even as she is of him. She knows it - knows it as resoundingly and as solidly as she knows her own name, and yet desperately, she seeks now to right the world.

“I did not deceive you,” she whispers, and her voice sounds hoarse even to her own ears. “I promised we would be together.”

(You are evil, the same as me. Paint the world in black and white for me - make everything alright again. Lie, lie, lie to me - make me believe the world is right again.)

She did not want to feel guilty for this. She needed to know she was doing what was right, and so, she reiterated, slowly, carefully, willing him to understand (and herself to believe). “We cannot be saved, Kaien-dono. So together… together, we will end this.” Inside, she begs him to understand.

He smiles.

“I am not Kaien-dono. I am not Miyako-dono. I have no heart or soul, and not even their stolen faces can mask that eternal shame.” The words come so easily - too easily - spoken with all the dispassion of a child's recital of poetry.

He smiles, but there is sadness in his words, and she is suddenly aware that his lies to her are not in the cursed time they have spent together these last months, but now. There is no accusation in his gaze - but nor is there a sense of camaraderie or understanding.

Only gentle adoration and a distant sadness.

“No…” she moans, pressing a hand to her churning gut.

(Lie to me, but make me believe… We are damned.) But how could he be, with eyes so soft and gentle?

“We are killing you, from the inside out,” he says, but there is nothing snide or leering or triumphant in it. It is simply a statement of a fact.

Slowly, he draws his sword. His face is wavering, at first flickering to show a glimpse of Miyako-dono's gently amused eyes, then back to Kaien's - then to another that she does not recognize, and another, and soon, it is hard to focus on him - hard to interpret that carefully neutral face.

(Neutral, because certainly that isn't sadness flickering across so many different features - across the faces of so many others that he had absorbed before.)

When his features finally settle, she feels a lurch of sickness in her gut as she finds herself staring… at herself.

“You have been absorbing me… this whole time?” Her stomach lurches, but with excitement. It would be a truly reproachable act. It would show him to be as twisted dark as her - she is giddy and the whirling sensation nearly makes her sick. This was what she wanted… this was what she needed…

He does not share her mirth. “To save those you love, you would die… but more, you would rot into something unrecognizable, forevermore. You would give your soul. You are truly a spectacular creature, Rukia-sama.”

There is something unspoken, there - something regretful, something sincere, and she hates it. She chokes on his truth (their truth - her truth - the only truth). She becomes firm, demanding an answer - demanding him to show himself to be beyond redemption. “This whole time… have you been meaning to absorb my soul this whole time?” (You were betraying even me. You are a monster - show me you are a monster, so I might drag you to hell with me and smile for having done it.)

There is sadness in the eyes staring back at her, though his mouth (her mouth - it wore her face, yet why could she only see it as Kaien?) curves into a smile, and she cannot for the life of her imagine why the curve of lips is the saddest thing she has ever known in this world. “You have been absorbing me, Rukia-sama.”

And she knows it is true. (For your power. For your love. I need you to be dirty, I need you to be beneath me. I am reproachable, but I need you to be worse. I need you.) She had been descending this entire time, but to have him and hold him beside her - to drag him down with her - it had made it feel a little less like falling, made her feel a little less alone. She had thought she was suffering him, that he was the disease ravaging them, but now, she realizes, the opposite was true all along.

She wants to be sick.

“You have a heart. You have a soul. And if I must cut them out to save them from this rot, then I will do so.” His eyes are bright with something she does not want to believe are tears. “That is how much we love you. We would lose you, to save you.”

“I cannot be saved,” she whispers hoarsely, and believes it. “We cannot be saved.” And perhaps she believes that a little less.

“You can be,” he repeats, soothing even as he draws his (her) sword. When Rukia looks around, for the first time in her life since she has come to know her inner world, she realizes that Shirayuki is nowhere to be found - not even the shadow of her idles at her side. Instead, her sheath rests snugly in his obi, and her perfect white hilt is held tightly in his hand, and absently, Rukia thinks, it wouldn't be right for her to hold such a pristine sword anyway.

“Shirayuki,” she whispers brokenly, stretching out a hand uselessly as if she might beckon her soul's other half back. She couldn't, of course. It was too late. Too late, too late, too late, always too late and too far gone - it was the story of her life, and now, it would be the story of her eternity.

Now, she finally realizes what it is to be truly, irrevocably alone.

She chokes on her grief; sinking to her knees and wishing for nothingness to take her and make it its own. “I do not want to be saved.”

He whispers again. “You will be.”

For a flicker of a moment, she sees through her eyes in the real world. God's soldier's sword protrudes through his chest - he had taken the blow meant for her. And he is smiling.

Rukia closes her eyes again.

In her inner world, she doesn't realize how close he has come until his arms wrap around her and his lips brush the cool tears from her face. He is warm. “Please don't cry for us, Rukia-chan. How could we die, when we were never truly alive?” he mumbles against her cheekbone. He is Kaien-dono again, and his lips are curved into a gentle smile. “We only lived through you; so long as you are alive -"

“I promised you we would be together,” she moans. It pains her to think of anything else.

“I thought that was what I wanted,” he replies, and the smile that fills her entire vision is not Kaien's at all, but entirely his own. Why had it taken her until now to realize that?

He leans back from her - holds her at arm's length as he cocks his head to survey her. Blood dribbles from his chin, and his eyes tilt in gentle amusement as his calloused thumb rubs away another tear she doesn't remember shedding.

“But this way makes me much happier.”

The skin of his hand on her face grows hot - far too hot - and he abruptly steps away from her, fading not into snow that she could control and call back, but into beautiful, elegant white ash.

When he is almost gone she desperately rakes her fingers through the air, grabbing desperately though the fine dust sifts easily through her fingers. She screams until her voice is hoarse. “No! No, don't leave me -!”

The last of him is his smile, and she imagines she will never, ever be able to forget. With his words alone, she imagines, he could kill her.

And she expects he will. She expects words of eternal devotion (that he cannot really offer, as he fades away to nothing); she expects words of love (that he will no longer be able to give, as he burns from her soul); she expects a killing blow, as her true loss is finally realized.

Instead he whispers, one last time. “Live.” And then he is gone.

… from her.

When she opens her eyes, already aching painfully with the tears she wants so badly to shed, she thinks for a moment she might be mad as his back appears before her, cutting off the archangel from her. There is no sword in his chest, no blood staining his shinigami robes.

His arms are spread wide, and God's soldier falters in his second killing blow, shocked by the sudden appearance of a creature already killed once.

Distantly, a memory of Kurosaki Masaki's specter appearing from the energy of her dying thoughts and feelings flickers through her mind. Rukia moans low in her belly from the ache as she realizes he was not real. She can see through his flickering spectral visage, already fading fast.

“Save her,” he says, simply, and then he is gone. For one final, real, irrevocable time, he is gone.

Forever.

“Noooo…” she howls, pain redoubling as slowly - hesitantly - God's soldier relaxes his pose - lets his sword drop to his side as he falters.

The reiatsu is close now - far too close - and it is almost too late.

“Noooo…” her hands clench hard into the rocky ground; her nails crack and her fingers bleed. “Do it,” she begs, but God's soldier remains frozen, uncertain - torn by the repentance of a creature he had clearly not expected it from. “Do it!” she hisses, and when still he hesitates, she knows there is only one way.

She draws her sword, lest they feel hesitance; turns wild white, empty irises to them. “End me, or rest assured, I will end you all!”

Shirayuki's hilt is unbelievably cold - far colder than she has ever been before. There is no feeling to her. She is empty; this is a white katana the size and shape of Shirayuki, but Shirayuki is not here. But she draws as smooth and perfect as butter nonetheless, and in her first swing the cold white bitter blade sinks a deep arc through the archangel's chest.

He bleeds and Rukia is bitterly disappointed. Cannot even these, God's chosen soldiers themselves, overcome her?

While still they hesitate she moves again and this time, it is his head that hits the ground. The sleek black mask bounces one way and the head in another, and it is a man's face - he has blonde hair and jovial green eyes, now empty in death, and she hates the way that she could so easily kill even these, the supposed elite over all.

“END ME!” she screams, and then, to assure her handicap - to assist in their victory, she viciously turns the blade that is not Shirayuki on herself, plunging the freezing tip into her stomach, withdraws, and plunges again, and again, and again, until she wears scarlet instead of her misleading white.

Had it been truly her zanpaktou, she would not have been able to injure herself upon it. She chokes on her sobs, regretting only that she will have no time to properly mourn Shirayuki - properly apologize for what had already been done, and what was yet to be. “END ME, END ME, END ME!”

But then the reiatsu surges down upon them, and even as the first of God's soldiers now finally moves forward, she realizes it is too late.

When they arrive at the scene in a flurry of running and panting and huffing and shouting, Orihime suddenly realizes that in all her rushing to get here, she has absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now that she was.

Kurosaki-kun's sword reverberates in a shocking clang, and his entire body seems to vibrate as he slams full force into the black-masked man standing before Rukia. The man does not fight back and instead flies back defensively. Like a flock of crows the rest of their haphazard would-be rescue-party descend behind Kurosaki-kun, forming a protective ring around Kuichiki-san.

Abarai-kun, Kuichiki-sama, Ishida-kun - even Tatsuki-chan is here, though she stays closer to Orihime than to the men, who are all bristling with so much killing intent. Though her mind seems to be working in slow motion, Orihime slowly begins to realize that though a man is dead, his chest deeply gouged and his head swiped clean from his body, none of their swords are bloodied.

For a moment, Kuichiki-san just stands there, swaying on her feet, making small whimpering sounds in her throat. Orihime is almost afraid to look - and when she finally does, it is as if the weight of her gaze alone is the final straw.

Kuichiki-san crumbles into a boneless heap to the ground and the crimson of her blood is as undeniable as it is shocking, staining Shirayuki and gushing in torrents down the front of her white kimono.

She should not have been able to turn her own zanpaktou upon herself. It is something that even Orihime knows is simply not possible - and though she only just barely understands that, the shinigami seem profoundly affected. It's as if they were defeated before the fight had even begun. In so many ways, she realizes, they had arrived far, far too late.

“Rukia!” Abarai-kun looks stricken - he sways between standing beside his captain to ward off the strangely-complacent enemy, and rushing to his fallen friend's side. For the first time since Orihime had first seen him, Kuichiki-sama looks utterly at a loss.

Ironically, it is when they all are frozen by indecision that she moves, scurrying behind them and rushing to Kuichiki-san's side in an instant. Healing. This is something she knows - this is something she can do. These strange soldiers and this uncertain battle she can do nothing for, but this - this she can.

On instinct, Orihime reaches for the fallen shinigami, but the moment her hand draws close to the wound she feels a distinct, heavy push as otherworldly energies swirl and bar her from it. Tears sting at her eyes as she breathes, “Kuichiki-san…”

“There is nothing that can be done,” one of them finally interrupt, as if sensing her confusion. “This is… a mercy.” The voice sounds feminine, but it is hard to tell, echoing and far away as it is. But even so, Orihime is certain she hears regret within it. “Let her end.”

“Orihime,” Tatsuki-chan whispers, reaching, and her hand is the only thing warm in the world - touching her shoulder, steadying her, even as she wavers. Her throat is tight and her cheeks are wet and Kuichiki-san's breaths are wheezing and coming in short, staccato bursts; her eyes are focused somewhere far away.

Finally, Ichigo breaks.

“Inoue - please! Do something - do anything - just please, Inoue -“

Had she a more spiteful soul, she might have felt a rush of pleasure at the way the tables have turned. Once, Inoue had whiled away the days, useless and alone in her prison-sanctuary in Heuco Mundo. The situation had only emphasized her helplessness - brought her eternal damsel condition into the forefront of her consciousness, where it would settle as uneasily as a rock in the pit of her stomach.

It had always been Kurosaki-kun. Or Ishida-kun, or Abarai-kun, or Kuichiki-sama. Or even Tatsuki-chan. It had been everyone except for her.

“Inoue - stay back.” “Inoue-san, please get to safety.”

Inoue, you're useless…

It should have been satisfying to hear him, the strongest of them all, beg her, poor, simple, foolish Inoue, to do something (anything, anything). It should be a milestone for her - an achievement in her own right.

It isn't.

And no matter how many tears she cries, they just can't seem to wash away the sea of red.

One of God's soldiers probably started to walk forward then - or perhaps Kurosaki-kun, so pent up in his own swirl of emotions, simply overreacted to some minor motion. Either way, the world erupts suddenly into a cacophony of sound, and a fierce battle begins around them.

Orihime's world, however, is but a tiny shell in the universe and she barely even sees the steel and the sparks whirling in desperate struggle around her. Instead, all she sees are the dark fluttering lashes of her dear friend as her eyes roll and she seems to become aware of her presence for the first time.

“Inoue...” She gasps for breath. “Please leave, Inoue -“

Orihime smiles sadly at the struggling girl, feeling a strange sense of sereneness wash over her. With something almost akin to regret, she shakes her head.

“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 another's life - was an order she would always be innately incapable of.

Though Orihime certainly felt sad… she did not waiver. “You told me to protect him, Kuichiki-san.”

When she raises her hands before her, she notes absently that they are already trembling with exertion and fear. She does not know how things will turn out - but she knows that anything has to be preferable to this.

“Please let me do this for him, Kuichiki-san.” When she shakes her head, her tears sparkle like so many prisms falling in the air between them. They caress Rukia's cheek, mingling with the tears already lingering there. “Please let me do this for all of us,” she corrects herself softly, and when Rukia notices Orihime moving closer, she stiffens.

Orihime feels that raw rug of energy again - the push and pull of swirling reiatsu attempting to turn her away. But when the golden glow reflects off Rukia's face and eyes, and Orihime could almost swear she glimpses a hint of violet flickering again, somewhere in the other girl's too-wide eyes.

Slowly, Rukia shakes her head again. “No, Inoue.”

Rukia does not fear for a moment that Inoue won't back off. And so, when she told her no, she almost relaxed the pressure of her defensive reiatsu. It was all about to end. Inoue might not understand, but she would respect her wishes; it was the nature of her gentle heart.

But then, Rukia realizes that Inoue is not backing away, and her hands are still held stiffly before her, fingers and thumbs taut in the shape of her triangle - doe-brown eyes glinting with a hint of backbone that Rukia would never have expected.

It is only now that Rukia has the sense of mind to fear.

Inoue smiles and the gentle curve of lips was painful to bear; it echoes the expression of a dark haired man who had faded from existence such a short time ago. “I'm sorry Kuichiki-san. We can't let you go without a fight,” she explains, as if in apology. Then, she tightens her fingers. “I reject.”

Who knew that gentle Inoue's power would be the most ravaging of them all?

Rukia throws back her head and screams.

Not even Orihime, with her godly ability to pick and choose events and history - with the ability to redefine time and space through rejection- not even Orihime can save her.

Something shifts, off-balance, and teeters precariously beyond the point of no return. She is trying to remove the `infection', perhaps, not realizing that Rukia is the infection. It catches and lights like so much dry tinder laid out beneath a thoughtlessly abandoned match. It was too late to stop it the moment it started.

Orihime seems to realize it too, at the last second, and she frantically starts to backpedal - trying to reel back her power, trying to stop the avalanche she has called, but Rukia desperately pulls it back, catalyzing the path of destruction.

She thinks she hears the girl screaming for her to stop. “Kuichiki-san - Kuichiki-san stop - it's going to carry you away!”

It is bright and burning, and though Rukia feels that it should hurt, it strangely doesn't. Instead, all she feels is a sensation of cleansing. But it is working, nonetheless; and so, she can accept the painless numbing - the slow, final fading.

“I can't - stop - it -“ Rukia only regrets making Orihime cry; she prays weakly that the girl will not carry this guilt with her.

“Thank you, Inoue,” Rukia whispers, loving and thankful and above all else, relieved when she feels the dirtiness fade away, just before she does. For one bright, perfect moment in time - she is clean again.

And then it all ends.

When Kuchiki-san stilled, the sound of the Shinigamis' zanpaktos' clashing viciously against the swords of God's soldiers resounded ridiculously loudly around her. And the sounds were so much more empty and meaningless, now that the source behind the clash was - was -

Orihime cried, and when she threw her hands out, her power manifested in a way it never had before, and the glow was large and encompassing and covered the entire area. The fighters were compelled into stillness, and into the sudden awkward silence, she screamed.

“It's too late!” She was weeping and trembling and completely broken. “It's too late, it's too late - I couldn't - I couldn't… I failed! Kuichiki-san's gone, it's too late!”

And it was so still, and she could not bring herself to look at Kurosaki-kun's face, or Abarai-kun's face, or even Kuichiki-sama's face, because she could not bear to see the grief and disappointment and emptiness that would be lingering there. All because of her. All because she was too weak.

Orihime had failed. Kuichiki-san had saved her life, once, at the cost of her own. And in return, Orihime had failed her in the worst kind of way. She had killed her. With her own two hands.

She moaned, and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, and bit her lips hard, but nothing would stop the stinging burn of salt in her eyes. “I failed… I failed… I failed…”

They were transfixed. Frozen, torn between grief and fury and confusion. No one heeded God's soldiers as two of them hauled up the body and head of their felled comrade. No one felt threatened when a third slowly approached Orihime, still cradling Kuichiki-san in her lap and arms, rocking her cold body. And why should they feel threatened? The battle was already lost, and God's soldiers had not come here for them. Their target lying limp and pale and bloody and safely dead in Orihime's lap.

Orihime looked up only when she felt someone near her - too near - and she flinched back, defensively cradling the body she held as if it wasn't already dead - as if she meant to protect Kuichiki-san even after she had killed her.

There was a strange gleam of curiosity and wonder in the eyes of God's soldier, barely visible beneath that onyx mask, as he peered down at them. “You did not fail,” he (she - it?) said, and the voice reverberated as if echoing up from a well.

He crouched before her, and though her initial instinct was to flinch away, she found she could not. She was transfixed, watching him as he watched Kuichiki-san. His hand glowed and pulsed as he reached forward, and very, very gently, touched Kuichiki-san's forehead.

There was no way to be sure, but for a moment, he looked as if he faltered. “You did not fail,” he repeated, more firmly this time, and then he rose and turned back to his people. “We are done here,” he said, and just like that, they were gone, leaving the assortment of shinigami and human's to watch numbly in their wake.

And then Orihime felt a strange flutter in her arms, and a cool breath stirred at her ginger locks, and her tears and sobs and cries came anew.

For thee I rose, now descend all alone.

The End

Author's Notes: To epilogue or not to epilogue?

Thanks for coming along for the ride. Please drop me a line if you enjoyed; drop me a few if you didn't, too - I'd greatly appreciate the feedback. (Plus, I really, really want a story to get near 100 reviews over its lifetime *puppy eyes*). Standard huge thanks to Kilonji, my beta, and to denebtenoh, who has artwork dedicated to this story on DeviantArt.

The separated italics (lyrics) have been from Angellore by Tristania.

(Come on, you know you want an epilogue… review and threaten me. Make me a happy panda!)