Chapter Text
It starts with an itchy tag on the back of his new shirt, the day after Chad’s fight. Ichigo yanks the shirt neck down after lunch and looks over his shoulder at the base of his neck, where his tanned skin has turned an angry red hue and even started to form small bumps. Impatiently he pulls the shirt over his head and digs for the little nail scissors Orihime keeps in the bathroom cabinet, cuts the tag off with a few snips, and rubs lotion on the irritated skin before he pulls his shirt back on.
The lotion smells too strong, too floral, but the odor dampens down as it absorbs into his skin and into the shirt, and Ichigo walks back to his desk with only a faint grumble. He makes a note not to buy that brand of shirt again, or at least to cut the tags off before he wears them. “They cheaped out,” he mutters as he brings up the translation he was working on before lunch. He has another few hours of work before he can knock off for the day, and when Kazui gets home from school he’ll have to take another break, at least until Orihime settles him down with a snack.
Ichigo shrugs, absently scratching at the still-irritated skin on his neck, and focuses on getting the rest of the chapter drafted before Kazui gets in. The computer screen is sharper today; did he accidentally change the setting on the display?
“Dinner’s ready!” Orihime calls, and Ichigo startles, looking away from his screen with a shake of his head. He glances out the window; the sun is long gone, the way it always is this time of year. He saves his work and stands, stretching to work out the kinks in his back, the stiff muscles from hours of sitting.
“Mizutaki tonight,” Ichigo says absently. The broth she’s using is stronger than usual; he can smell it even through the closed door of the partition he installed in what should have been their dining room. Mizutaki’s a good enough choice as any for a night like this; it’s freezing outside, and the heater in his office is struggling to keep up. He pulls open the door and pads into the kitchen, feet silent on the wooden floors thanks to the house slippers “Kazui” (really, Orihime) got him for his birthday.
“Ichigo!” Orihime exclaims, her voice ringing in the silence of the house. “You’ve been so quiet all afternoon, I almost thought you’d gone into the office today after all.”
“Nah,” he says easily, even though this close the smell of ponzu sauce is overwhelming. Did she use an entire tree’s worth of yuzu in the sauce? “I’m headed in tomorrow though.”
“Look, I made this at school today,” Kazui says, suddenly beside him, and Ichigo bends down to look at the art he’s holding up, while behind him Orihime sets the hot pot on the table and takes off her frilly pink apron.
“That’s great, Kazui,” Ichigo says automatically. “Really colorful.” Really colorful. The school’s markers are practically neon. “Why don’t you hang it on the fridge and wash your hands so you can have dinner?”
Their kitchen is a lot smaller than the one at his dad’s house; the whole apartment is a lot smaller, and with him using the dining area as his office their plain wooden dinner table is one that they collapse down against the wall after every meal.
Ichigo sits down at the table once Orihime and Kazui do, but this close to the hotpot the odor is overpowering, so strong he nearly gags. Did the chicken go bad? Or maybe the mushrooms? But Orihime happily starts serving Kazui, helping him reach the pot and pick out the chicken and vegetables he wants.
Something strange, huge and silvery flashes in the corner of his eye and he turns his head to catch it, but there’s nothing there.
“…Are you listening, Ichigo?”
He shakes himself. “Too much time staring at a computer screen today,” Ichigo apologizes.
“You work long hours,” Orihime says soothingly, “of course you must be tired. We should take a vacation. Hakone is lovely this time of year.”
“Maybe,” he says noncommittally, because the thought of going to an onsen with her sits uneasily in his chest and anyway they don’t really have the money for that. “I have some big projects coming up; not sure I’ll be able to get the time off for a while.” Kazui is happily digging into his dinner, and so is Orihime. Their clacking, clicking chopsticks are thunderous in his ears, and he swallows down a pulse of nausea.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Click. Clack. Orihime’s voice, high and concerned, is shrill as a siren in his ears.
His shirt strangles him, the collar too tight around his neck, the ragged edges of the tag he cut off scraping his skin until it cuts into him. “Need some air,” Ichigo gasps out, and even the screech of the chair legs against the tile floor makes him cover his ears, trying to defend them against the onslaught.
He stumbles out of the apartment and onto the walkway still in his house slippers. The cold air slaps him in the face and Ichigo takes a long, shuddering breath, clearing his lungs of oversalted chicken broth and overwhelming citrus. What the hell is happening to him? Zangetsu has no answers; dampened by his mortal body, his zanpakutō is as unsettled as he is, fevered and reaching for something.
“Soten Kisshun, I reject,” Orihime says behind him, and the glowing light of her rejection shield glows around him. She draws her hands back in shock as it splinters under her fingers an instant later. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t it working?” she asks plaintively, shrilly.
“Stop talking so loudly,” he pleads, his voice a hoarse whisper as he sinks to his knees, covering his ears with his hands and simultaneously trying to tug at his shirt, pulling the harsh fabric away from his neck. Traffic noises filter up from below, blaring horns and rumbling motors so loud they set his teeth on edge. When did the street get so busy?
She kneels in front of him and tries again, and again, but the shield shatters each time. Finally, one of the fairies floats around him and tells Orihime in an ear-splittingly high voice, “There’s nothing to reject, Orihime-san.”
Silver enters his vision again, and Ichigo jerks back. He has the impression of something huge and otherworldly, not a hollow or a soul but entirely different, but when Orihime turns her head to look it’s gone.
“Kaasan, what’s wrong with Tousan?” Kazui asks from the doorway, his eyes glinting. In the light shining over him from the genkan he, too, looks hostile and strange.
Orihime shakes her head. “I- I don’t know, Kazui,” she says helplessly. “Maybe it’s a migraine. Come back inside, Ichigo, I’ll give you some painkillers and you can lie down.”
Even her touch, light on his arm, is too much, and the flowery perfume she wears makes him heave. But he lets her draw him back inside, lets her give him pills and lie him down on their bed, on sheets that yesterday were fine but tear at him tonight, and when she tries to hold him he pushes her away, every nerve on fire and his heart pounding in his ears and drowning out her plaintive voice.
The pills do nothing to help him, and within a day Ichigo’s symptoms are worse than ever. Every whisper is like a screaming banshee in his ear; his softest, oldest clothing feels like a hair shirt. Working is an impossibility when his eyes seem to zoom in on the smallest kanji stroke and water constantly, stung by the shocking brightness of the screen.
Kazui watches him, eyes dark with something he doesn’t understand, and when his five-year-old son disappears in the night, his reiatsu gone from the apartment, Ichigo doesn’t know where he goes.
On the third morning after his symptoms started, he heaves up what feels like everything he’s ever eaten and leans helplessly, listlessly against the bathtub in the dark. His stomach roils and Ichigo does his best to breathe slowly through his mouth.
“I’m calling Urahara-san,” Orihime says reluctantly from the doorway, after her fairies have once again failed to do anything to help him.
One of them warns her, “You must stop calling on us, Orihime-san. There is nothing to reject.”
He rests his head on the too-hard tub while she makes her phone call and speaks loudly, urgently, into the phone, and when he resurfaces from drifting into unconsciousness strong arms are lifting him. Ichigo cries out and Tessai hushes him. Kido flares around him and a modicum of his discomfort eases.
“What’s wrong with him?” Orihime demands shrilly.
“I’m not sure,” Urahara replies. He keeps his voice much lower than hers. “We’ll get him to the shop, Orihime-san, and examine him. You said your shun shun rikka was ineffective?”
“I’ve tried so many times,” she says, “But they say there’s nothing to reject.”
“Hmm. Well, not to worry! We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Urahara promises.
Being carried to Urahara’s shop is painful, even with whatever kido Tessai has woven around him, and being hauled down the ladder into the underground training area is a special kind of torture.
“Do you know what’s happening to Kurosaki, Manager?”
Ichigo squints against the too-bright light as Urahara paces around him.
“Ururu! Throw down some bedding for our guest!” Urahara calls.
His voice booms in Ichigo’s ears. All he wants is for the world to quiet down, for everything to stop hurting. He wants – he wants –
There’s another flash of silver in the corner of his eye and Ichigo jerks his head towards it, but once again there’s nothing. Urahara follows his gaze with eyes narrowed behind his fan.
A bundle of fabric falls to the ground with a low whump, and Tessai grabs it silently, easily balancing Ichigo over his shoulder. Ichigo shudders and dry heaves as his head spins. The ground moves underneath him, and darkness encroaches on his vision.
“Set him here,” Urahara orders, and when Tessai does he taps Ichigo’s forehead lightly with the tip of his cane, dislodging his soul from his body, which flops to the floor ungracefully.
It doesn’t help much. The scratchiness of his clothes has vanished but his shihakusho is just as bad, rough, heavy cotton like needles on his skin. “What the hell’s happening to me?” he rasps.
Urahara tsks quietly. “I have my suspicions, Kurosaki-san,” he says, keeping his voice low. Behind him Tessai lays out the futon and bedding. They’re in a cave, mercifully darker than the bright blue of the artificial sky and sunlight outside. “Rest, for now. Tessai will set up a kido that will block out the worst of the stimulation.”
Tessai takes his body when they leave. He hears a kido spell, clear as day, and soon the faint glow of a kido barrier shines across the cave’s entrance.
He drops down onto the bedding, swallowing down another pulse of nausea. What the hell is he supposed to do now? Zangetsu stirs uneasily. Without the barrier of his body his zanpakutō is closer to the surface, shuddering and snarling, senses as haywire as his.
Ichigo puts his head in his hands and weeps.
Her skin prickles with a nameless unease, and Sode no Shirayuki stirs inside her, as ill at ease as her wielder. Something isn’t right; though the Seireitei is quiet, and her division calmer still, her heart beats too fast in her chest.
Inexplicably she thinks of Ichigo, on the other side of the veil between life and death. They watched Chad’s fight together yesterday, seeing each other for the first time in years. She met Kazui, finally, Ichigo’s son with Orihime, and he met Ichika.
She’d missed him. She misses him now, and swallows down just how much.
“Are you alright, Captain Kuchiki?”
Rukia startles out of her thoughts and looks up at her lieutenant. “I’m sorry, Sentarō,” she apologizes. “I lost my train of thought.”
He frowns down at her. “You’re going to be late for the Captain’s meeting if you don’t hurry,” he advises. “Let me take those reports from you, I’ll get them done while you’re gone.”
She offers him a wan smile. She’s far more capable, physically, than Captain Ukitake was, but Sentaro’s habits are deeply ingrained. “Thank you,” she says gratefully, and hands off some of the pile to him. Rukia stands and stretches, her back aching from too long spent behind her desk, before pulling her haori on and striding from her office. Despite Sentaro’s warning that she’s late, not all of the captains are assembled by the time she walks into the great meeting hall, rebuilt following the Soul King War.
Byakuya nods to her as she takes her place beside Captain Zaraki and absently, she nods back, but her thoughts still cast towards Karakura, towards Ichigo.
He was fine when she saw him yesterday. More worn than she’d expected, with shadows under his eyes and the beginnings of a receding hairline. The human life is but a blink; in only a few years he will be old, and his body will give out, his soul will be sent here…
“The hell, Kuchiki?” Zaraki demands, and when he lifts his foot from the ground, he leaves half his sandal behind, frozen to the stone. He radiates irritation, though not the killing anger she might have expected; there is something in him that offers her respect, that tempers him. He mourns the loss of Yachiru, still; he is fond of her daughter and of Nemuri; of the little Omaeda girl, too, the one who was injured in the war.
He is strangely fond of her brother, he—
Rukia-sama!
Abruptly, silence descends in her mind once more. Rukia’s cheeks flush dark with embarrassment. “M-my apologies, Captain Zaraki,” she stammers as one by one the other captains turn to look at her. In her distraction, her power has slipped out, forming a ring of ice around her body. She reels her reiatsu back in with care, until the air around her has returned to its normal state and the ice is a faint slick of water around her.
Sode no Shirayuki hums and mutters, still uneasy. He is waking up, she murmurs. And so are we.
She places one hand on the hilt of her sealed sword. What is it? What do you mean? she demands in return. I’m not asleep.
Something sleek and silver flickers in the corner of her eye, but when Rukia turns her head, there is nothing there except the doors to the hall, tightly shut now that everyone else has arrived.
Still, as Captain-Commander Kyōraku calls the meeting to order and announces the agenda, Rukia can’t shake off the unease, or the feeling that something is watching for her, waiting for her, beyond her senses.
It continues long into the night, when she kisses Ichika goodnight and smooths the duvet over her. From her daughter she suddenly senses the girl’s admiration for her father, the little puppy-crushes she has on Yumichika and Kazui both, and the awkwardness of her relationship with Rukia herself. A fist wraps around her heart, and Rukia presses her hand against her chest to push away the pain.
Rukia closes the shoji door to her daughter’s room and steps onto the engawa, slipping her shoes back on. The servants lit the outdoor sconces before they retired for the night, and she is bathed in pale yellow light as she walks the dark wood panels towards her bedroom.
She pauses on the engawa and turns her head towards the inner courtyard. It is full dark, the moon rising overhead, and in a shaft of its light, she sees it: a huge, thick-furred cat.
Snow leopard, her brain corrects automatically.
There is a snow leopard in her courtyard.
She saw some, once, when Ichigo took her to the zoo years and years ago. She’d hated that place, hated seeing so many beautiful wild animals locked away in cages, but the snow leopards in their rocky territory had drawn her to them in a way that was unlike the rest. She’d stared at them for ages, Ichigo waiting patiently beside her. He’d bought her a little plushie from the gift shop, after. She’d had to leave it behind in Yuzu and Karin’s room after the war.
Slowly, cautiously, but unafraid, Rukia steps down from the wooden platform. Her feet are nearly silent on the ground as she walks towards the creature.
The snow leopard waits patiently as she approaches, sitting on its – her – haunches with her puffy furred tail wrapped around her body and her front paws. When Rukia is close enough to reach out and touch her, the leopard opens its jaws to reveal an impressive set of teeth and roars. It’s a strange, coughing sort of sound, with a note of melancholy in it.
Sode no Shirayuki stirs and hums in welcome.
“Oh,” Rukia says, and stares into the snow leopard’s eyes. “Yuzuki.” The name is soft from her lips, but certain. The world falls away, and in her mind’s eye snow surrounds her. The cold cannot touch her for she is warm inside her fur, her tremendous paws running easily through the deep, powdery snow beneath them. She rolls in it and pounces for the pure joy of it, her thick, fluffy tail helping her keep her balance.
Yuzuki bunts against Rukia’s hand and rises from her haunches, a rumbling purr echoing from her throat as she winds her way around Rukia’s legs and rubs soft, white fur against her. The name is exactly right: Yuzuki is snow under the moonlight, and the black spots scattered over her fur remind Rukia of flowers.
With the leopard pressing against her legs Rukia’s mind quiets, and Sode no Shirayuki, too, settles easily under her skin.
Guide, Yuzuki says, in the same way Shirayuki has spoken to her for many years.
The word rings true deep in her soul, and yet she does not know what her new companion could mean by the word.
You will, and soon, the snow leopard promises.
“Rukia?” She whirls around, her voluminous haori hiding Yuzuki from view. Renji stands on the engawa wrapped in a brightly patterned sleeping robe, yawning and scratching his side with one enormous hand. “The hell are you doing standing in the dark all by yourself in the middle of the night?”
When Rukia glances back, Yuzuki is gone. The moon has shifted in the sky; it has been not minutes but hours that she has spent here, meeting her spirit animal. “Admiring the moon,” Rukia fibs, finally.
The expression he makes is skeptical, but he shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, and walks back into their bedroom.
As soon as the door slides shut, Yuzuki winds around her legs and bunts against her. He will not understand, when you meet your Sentinel.
Rukia breathes out a low, sad sigh. “No,” she agrees in a faint whisper, even though she doesn’t know what a Sentinel is, or where to find one. Instinct tells her that her new companion is right. She glances up at the moon again. It’s late; she needs to sleep, or she’ll be useless in the morning.
Yuzuki vanishes into thin air with a nod. The creature isn’t gone, though; Rukia can feel her, faintly, at the edges of her senses.
She walks to her bedroom and slides open the door, stepping inside on light feet. Renji is already lying down on his futon, his back to her. In silence she bathes and changes for bed, laying out her own futon, pillow, and duvet, and slipping underneath the covers, snuggling down into the soft fabric. It’s been years since they shared a futon regularly. Her pregnancy was a difficult one, and she started using a separate futon in her fifth month as she grew bigger and bigger, and more and more uncomfortable. Since then, it’s felt claustrophobic to share a futon with Renji.
She can feel him, the way she felt Zaraki earlier. Resentment sits heavily in his mind: he has yet to surpass her brother the way he wished to. He is jealous of her, with her captain’s haori and her salary that’s nearly thrice his, and ashamed, too, of his jealousy. He’s angry that it’s been months and months since she let him touch her.
There is a fierce love for Ichika, the protectiveness of a father for his only daughter.
Even asleep, or mostly asleep, his mind batters at hers, and Rukia jerks away reflexively.
Warmth surrounds her and Yuzuki huffs, laying her fluffy tail over Rukia’s legs while she stretches herself alongside the length of her body. Immediately the uncontrollable barrage of thoughts shuts off. Her mind is silent, calm. You must learn to keep out the thoughts of others, Yuzuki advises as she lays her head on Rukia’s stomach. I will keep watch tonight, and you will begin training in the morning.
Absently, Rukia reaches down and strokes her hand through Yuzuki’s soft fur. She hopes her new companion can hide herself – Renji won’t take kindly to finding a snow leopard in their bedroom.
The snow leopard snorts. He can’t see me unless we want him to, she says, and her purrs rumble through Rukia’s body until she is drawn into sleep.
But though Yuzuki guards her mind, unease follows her into her dreams. In the darkness of sleep she follows a gleaming red thread, moving between worlds and times to find what she seeks. Sentinel, her mind provides, whatever that could mean. The thread leads her and Rukia follows. At the other end is – is –
She wakes. The shoji door is open, letting in the morning sunlight. Renji is gone, his futon a rumpled mess on the tatami mats.
Ichigo.
It’s the work of a few minutes to dress for the day, and strap on Sode no Shirayuki. Rukia hurries onto the engawa and then into the air, using shunpo to get from her house in the nobles’ quarters to her brother’s office.
As she thought, he’s already working, sitting calmly behind his chabudai and writing painfully neat kanji on a report.
“Rukia,” he says calmly, without looking up from his work.
“Nii-sama. I need to use the Kuchiki senkaimon,” Rukia says without preamble, affecting a serenity befitting of a Kuchiki.
Byakuya raises his head. “For what reason?” he asks. “If you are conducting official business, as a Captain you have the right to request the use of the primary senkaimon.”
“This is a private matter,” Rukia says.
“Hn. To see Kurosaki Ichigo, I presume.” Byakuya’s voice holds a faint hint of disapproval.
“Yes,” she agrees. Yuzuki bunts against her lightly, her head nudging her thigh.
The blood drains from Byakuya’s face and he stands so quickly that the chabudai topples over, sending papers scattering and ink spilling all over the pristine tatami mats. “A spirit animal,” he whispers. “When - when did it appear?”
Spirit animal. Is that what Yuzuki is? “Last night,” Rukia admits.
“You are a Guide,” Byakuya surmises. There’s a slight tremor in his hands. “You must be; if you were a Sentinel you would be in agony without a bonded Guide.”
Since when does her brother know what Guides and Sentinels are? Is her Sentinel in agony? Is that why she’s felt this unease since yesterday? Rukia’s heart pounds in her chest, and Yuzuki rubs against her more aggressively. “Yes,” she agrees breathlessly. “And my Sen–”
“There isn’t much time,” her brother warns sharply, cutting her off. “Come.”
Thoroughly bewildered, she follows him to the manor and then to the secret room that houses the Kuchiki clan’s private senkaimon. He sends the guards away with a curt word of dismissal, and when they have gone Byakuya watches the slowly charging gate. “Hisana’s illness was such that her powers never awakened,” he says quietly.
Rukia stills. “My sister was a Guide?” she asks sharply.
“She was meant to be...” Byakuya touches his kenseikan lightly. “She would have been my Guide. When she died, I chose to suppress my abilities. There are so few of us; most of those few shinigami who could become Sentinels or Guides are dormant. But I could not bear to have anyone but her.”
His words send an instinctive shiver down her spine. She’s had these strange abilities for only a day but the idea of suppressing some innate part of herself brings up her gorge, a pulse of nausea that she swallows down. “Nii-sama…”
“Go,” he says quietly as the gates open. “Go, before you lose him.”
“Thank you, nii-sama,” she whispers, and leaps into the darkness, following a hell butterfly.
Karakura is quiet when she touches down. The world is empty of Ichigo’s reiatsu; it cut off sometime while she slept, when her dreams quieted. She hurries to Urahara’s shop; he’ll either know what’s going on, or he’ll help her find out. He owes her.
The shop is closed, but the door opens under her touch.
“Kuchiki-san,” Tessai says. He’s dressed in day clothes, but his shop apron hangs casually over his shoulder. “The shop isn’t open yet.”
“Tessai-san,” she says, bowing in return. “I know, and I am sorry to arrive so early in the morning, but I…”
“Was worried about Kurosaki-san, I imagine,” Urahara says, cane tapping lightly on the floor as he steps into the shop from the back rooms. “Weren’t you, Kuchiki-san?”
“Yes. What do you know, Urahara?”
He frowns at her, eyes shaded by his green and white striped hat. She can just barely see the scarring on his skin, artifacts of his battles during the war. “Kurosaki-san is currently sealed behind a sound and light-dampening kido downstairs,” he says. “He is… unwell. You’ll see.” And he gestures for her to follow him.
It’s faster to jump down than climb the interminably long ladder, and Rukia lands lightly on her feet, haori billowing out around her. Yuzuki, suddenly visible, takes off like a shot, and Rukia follows her. She ignores Urahara’s call to wait.
Yuzuki stops at a kido barrier set into the mouth of a cave and gives a low, choked-off roar. She paces impatiently, fluffy tail whipping in anger.
And.
“Oh, Ichigo,” she whispers. He’s left his body behind and shed his shihakusho – only his fundoshi covers him. Rashes and hives scatter over his body, red and angry against his tanned skin, and his cropped-short hair is flattened, limp. His scars cut through smatterings of freckles she never had time to notice before. Zangetsu lies near his pile of clothes.
The kido between them is one of Tessai’s, and it’s strong, but Rukia slashes it apart with the counter-incantation and drops to her knees at his side. “I’m here, Ichigo,” she says, and takes his hands. “I’m here.”
There’s a brokenness in his amber eyes, but Ichigo grasps her hands right back, so tight it hurts. “Rukia,” he says desperately. “What the hell is wrong with me?” Tears spill down his cheeks and drip down his chin.
“I know. I know it hurts. But I’m here now.” Rukia squeezes his hands gently. “I’m your Guide, and you are my Sentinel, and I’m here now.”
No, Renji won’t understand. The moment the words leave her mouth she feels a pulsation in her soul, a sound as loud as a bell in her mind. We’re connected, Ichigo had told her once, more perceptive than he’d known, all those years ago.
“Breathe with me,” Rukia says. “Nice and slow, okay?” She keeps her voice quiet, a low whisper. Yuzuki pushes against her and instinctively she adds, “Now attenuate your hearing, quiet the world down. Not too much.”
“Please,” he says hoarsely, and in between one breath and the next Ichigo throws himself into her arms, his heavier body warm and right even as she falls back, unbalanced by his weight. “Guide – Rukia – I need…”
“Shh. Shh.” Rukia runs her fingers through his hair and shushes him gently. She lets loose her reiatsu and it blankets him, soothing him and easing his breathing. “I’ll help you, I promise.” She glares at Urahara when he finally enters the doorway of the cave. “I can’t believe you trapped him here,” she hisses. “Were you trying to kill him?”
Urahara draws back, chastened. “Do you know what’s wrong with him, Kuchiki-san?” he asks carefully. “Orihime-san couldn’t help him with her powers, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
She scowls. “Ichigo is a Sentinel,” she says bluntly. “And I am his Guide.” Under other circumstances, she’d be amused by how utterly gob smacked Urahara looks.
“A Sentinel,” he repeats. “They’re only a myth, Kuchiki-san.”
Yuzuki snarls beside her. “Do you have another explanation?” Rukia asks bluntly.
Bring him outside, Yuzuki demands. His spirit animal is too big for this… hovel. This last is said with such distaste that Rukia almost laughs.
“Can you stand up for me, Ichigo?” she asks, keeping her voice soft. “Yes, that’s it.” Agonizingly slowly she helps him to his feet, glaring at Urahara when he stands in the way.
She has the impression of something coiling, hissing. Something huge. Urahara shouts and backs away.
Ichigo straightens up. “Oh,” he says, and Rukia raises her eyes up – up, up.
“You have got to be joking,” she says sharply.
Ichigo’s spirit animal, coiled around them in a semi-translucent circle is a damned dragon. Its claws dig into the rocky earth, creating great gouges in the ground, and in the artificial sunlight its scales gleam all the way from its feathered tail to its great, maned head. Smoke coils from its nostrils.
Of course his spirit animal is a dragon.
“He says he’d laugh at your expression if things were less dire,” Ichigo says hoarsely. “His name’s Ryuuga. He says – says we have to bond. Or…”
“Or your symptoms will get worse,” Rukia surmises. “Byakuya said an unbonded Sentinel would be in agony.”
“You can’t bond,” Urahara says sharply. His cane raps sharply on the ground.
“Why not?” Ichigo demands, his voice growing stronger. “Rukia and I have always been connected. What’s one more thing between us?”
“Think about it, Kurosaki-san,” Urahara says, ignoring Ryuuga’s angry growl, Yuzuki’s puffed up posture. “You live here in Karakura with your wife and son. Kuchiki-san’s life is in Soul Society, with her husband and daughter. You cannot bond with a so-called Guide a world away from you.”
Rukia opens her mouth to speak, but before she can, Ichigo’s reiatsu fills the underground world, and around them Ryuuga seethes, his roar shaking the earth.
“I won’t be kept from her,” Ichigo snarls. “She is my Guide.”
Urahara frowns at him. “I’m sorry, Kurosaki-san, Kuchiki-san,” he says quietly. “It’s for the best.” Easily, casually, he pulls his hand from the pocket of his haori and drops something on the ground. Pale pink smoke spills out.
The world disappears from under her feet.
“Rukia-san? Oh good, your fever’s finally broken!”
She opens her eyes slowly. “Where--?” Rukia croaks. She sits up quickly and immediately regrets it as the room spins and tilts threateningly around her.
“Try not to sit up too fast.” And – oh, it’s Hanatarou. “You’ve been unconscious almost two days,” he explains solemnly. “Abarai-san brought you to the Fourth Division when he couldn’t wake you; you’ve been burning up with fever.”
He eases her back against the pillows, and the world resolves itself into a small, tidy private room in the Fourth Division. The kind they put Captains in. Rukia accepts the glass he offers her and sips the cool water slowly. “Thank you,” she says when it’s empty. “I don’t remember being ill…”
Hanatarou smiles down at her kindly and sets the glass on the nightstand beside her bed. “You wouldn’t, Rukia-san,” he says. “Abarai-san thinks you got sick overnight, after standing outside in the cold.”
Odd; she doesn’t remember that either. “I see,” Rukia murmurs. “Thank you for taking care of me, Hanatarou. When can I go back to my division?”
“We’ll discharge you this afternoon, Kuchiki-san,” he says. “But promise me you’ll be careful for a few days. I’m not sure what caused your fever, but you could have a relapse if you don’t take care.”
Despite her unease, Rukia smiles up at him. “Thank you,” she says. “You’ve always taken such good care of me, Hanatarou.”
He’s grown up a lot in the last ten years – instead of panicking and blushing he offers her a smile in return. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asks.
Something warm and gentle blooms in her chest. “Yes, we are,” she agrees.
“Speaking of friends, I heard you and Abarai-san visited Karakura recently and saw Ichigo. How is he?”
Rukia carefully conceals the clench of her fingers on her lap, the sudden ache in her chest. “He’s well,” she says calmly. “He and his wife have a four-year-old son.” Seeing him last week was wonderful, no matter how brief. It’s good to see him doing well, to see that he has a good life in Karakura.
“I see.” Hanatarou’s brow furrows slightly. “I’ll go get a fresh uniform for you,” he says.
When he returns, she dresses quickly and pulls on her haori, which Hanatarou left hanging on a hook by the door, then straps on Sode no Shirayuki. “Oh,” she says when she glances in the mirror. One thick lock of her waist-length hair is braided, and bears a set of silver beads at the end.
Strange. Rukia examines them more closely and shrugs. They’re quite pretty. She leaves the Fourth Division and returns to her office, to Sentarō and to the piles of paperwork that have built up in her absence.
“Oh, those?” Renji asks later, at dinner, when she mentions the beads. “Me an’ Ichika put them in your hair. Ichika wanted to give you a get well present.”
“How sweet,” Rukia says, and smiles down at her daughter. “I’ll wear them often.”