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dracoqueen22a/n: Greetings! I'm posting this today instead of tomorrow as I have something else I need to post tomorrow. So yay! Also, this isn't quite the chapter you were expecting as it's an interlude.
Title: The Beautiful Lie
Pairings: Urahara/Ichigo, Aizen/Ichigo, Shinji/Nel
Rating: M
Warning: Spoilers for recent chapters, Character death, Yaoi-ness, Post-war fic, Violence
Description: Years after the painful end, the echoes of war still prove their influence, and Ichigo discovers a dead man in his kitchen.
Kisuke doesn’t sleep that night. The one before everyone leaves to battle for their lives and their futures without him. He won’t be going. He’ll be staying behind in relative safety and luxury. He’ll be with friends.
He’ll be losing his mind. He’ll be wondering and worrying and waiting for Ichigo to come back.
He isn’t waiting for forgiveness though. Kisuke knows he doesn’t deserve it. He’s a bad man; he understands that. He killed and tortured and imprisoned with only the excuse that he was following orders. That it wasn’t out of malice but duty and then later for science.
Kisuke isn’t a good person. He’s never really been. He’s been selfish and callous if not outwardly and intentionally cruel. He’s lied and manipulated as much as Aizen if not as skillfully. The only difference is that he did it on Seireitei’s time and their dime and was rewarded for things that should’ve had him executed in a sensible world.
But he wasn’t, and he was never brave enough to end it himself. To wrap the Hougyoku in his own soul and then hasten himself onto his next life to protect it.
It was an option. He could’ve done it – should’ve done it. But Kisuke wasn’t willing to sacrifice his own life like he sacrificed so many others.
He’s not good enough for Ichigo. Never will be. Can’t even approach the idea of him.
He was never good enough for Yoruichi either. Never noble enough or rich enough. Powerful enough. Bold enough. Enticing enough.
He was never enough or too much. Too smart. Too nerdy. Too cluttered. Too clumsy. Too much like himself. Too much like the bastard child he is in truth.
He could never make her look at him. See him. Never make her head turn to glance over her shoulder. Kisuke was always in her shadow. One step behind and to the side. Lingering in the darkness as she poured out light and pleasure with everyone but him. Hanging at the sidelines with Soifon, who had hated him so much for being in the same position as her, and waiting for that one scrap of attention.
As much as it hurts, as much as he cried when no one could see him, the fact that Yoruichi left was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. He couldn’t follow her anymore. Couldn’t wallow. Could finally open his eyes and see what had been staring him in the face for years.
Ichigo’s all that Yoruichi is and all she’ll never be.
He’s not good enough for Ichigo either. Kisuke doesn’t care.
He wants him. Loves him. Would give him everything he’s always closely guarded. His heart and his life and his soul.
But not his secrets.
He can’t. He’s too afraid.
Of what Ichigo will think. Of what he’ll know about the man who once shared his bed and his body. That he’ll know the hands that were so gentle and passionate with him weren’t even kind to others. That they’re blood-stained and calloused with the lives of dozens if not hundreds of innocents and that Kisuke never even thought to care until he meet Ichigo.
It’d never occurred to him before then that he’d even done anything wrong. But now, he knows, and Kisuke can’t forget. He can’t unsee their faces in his sleep. Can’t forget all the horrors he unwittingly but willingly committed.
But even more than that, he can’t forget Ichigo’s smile. His laugh. His taste. His eyes as he climaxes. His face as he sleeps. The feel of their reiatsu intertwining and curling around them as they lie together.
Kisuke can’t forget any of that. He doesn’t even want to. He clings to it like a lifeline. Like a promise that he has no right to demand and Ichigo should never give.
It’s all that he has now. He has nothing left.
Just his life. And it really isn’t worth that much. It’s never been. Not even when he was a small boy wondering why the nobles snubbed him.
It’s all he has left to give. The only thing of real value he carries.
But he honestly thinks that Ichigo won’t want it.
Kisuke doesn’t blame him.
o0o0o
The worst mistake Kuchiki Rukia ever makes wasn’t on the night Kaien-dono died or even getting him killed in the first place. It isn’t allowing herself to be adopted by the Kuchiki and leaving Renji behind. It isn’t even being defeated by a pathetically weak Hollow and then giving her powers to a human.
It’s made on a chilly but beautiful day in Karakura as her breath fogs in front of her. She and Ichigo sit on the roof of his house as dawn chases away the last vestiges of the night. The cocoa in her mug has long gone cold, but she toys with the cup and leans her shoulder against Ichigo’s arm.
Then, she asks for one thing – a single favor – that damns not just him but her, too. She asks him for the thing she never should, and later, when the world is crumbling down around her, Rukia understands why.
She should’ve sat there. She should’ve said nothing.
But she doesn’t. She asks for his help. For him to keep being her friend. For him to keep fighting when he shouldn’t.
He was just as boy then. He’s not now. Not anymore.
He was a boy, a silly human boy who could see ghosts, and Rukia had turned him not only into a Shinigami but into something that sometimes was all too much like a killing machine. Something all too much like a Hollow.
A Vizard.
It wasn’t obvious in the beginning. Even when she saw his mask and her only thoughts were worry for him and not fear. But it grew as time went on and the war deepened, and Ichigo kept growing stronger and stronger still. Until he could go days fighting and barely even be breathing hard and then still have lessons in reiatsu-control afterwards without missing a beat. Until he could defeat multiple captains at the same time with both hands tied behind his back and perform shunpo better and faster than Yoruichi-san and Soifon combined.
But then… then, Renji died. He died, and Rukia couldn’t do anything about it. She could only sit numbly next to his body – what was left of it, him – as her brother squeezed her hand until his knuckles were white. Could only watch as they burned him to nothing that night and her brother scattered his ashes throughout the sixth division and Rukongai.
She thinks that’s when things really changed. Not when Ichigo turned to Ukitake-taichou and Kyouraku-taichou for comfort and reassurance but not her. Not when he cried at killing Ulquiorra. Not he just stared out at Seireitei and looked like a stranger then entire time.
That’s when things unraveled. That’s when Ichigo went from her closest friend to a guilt-stricken mess who buried his face in Urahara’s shoulder after a battle but didn’t shed a tear. That’s when Rukia herself looked at her friends – Inoue and Sado and Ishida – and realized how fragile they were, how human. How young.
That’s when Rukia saw it. When she watched Ichigo go from a young man in a fight to protect his family to a war veteran with cold and calculating eyes. But he covered it up so well that Rukia honestly thought she imagined it. She hadn’t though, and it became more obvious as time crept on. As she saw him kill in a way that had sent him shaking for hours afterwards, but now, he did it easily. Thoughtlessly. Carelessly even.
That’s when Rukia didn’t know him anymore. Realized that maybe she never had.
But then, the war ended, and Aizen was defeated, and Rukia could finally breathe again. She drifted from them then, her human friends. It was better that she did. That they got on with their lives and she got on with hers.
Or maybe she was just too afraid she’d see what she’d wrought. What her weakness had done to them. To these innocents she’d unwittingly dragged into a war not of their making. Maybe she didn’t want to see that gleam in Ichigo’s eyes anymore. The look that said he didn’t relish killing but was good at it and would do anything necessary to win.
The following years were harder than she’d thought they’d be. She had friends but not close ones, and being a lieutenant was far less satisfying than it should’ve been. Most of her time was spent doing everything her captain felt was personally beneath her and trying to keep order in a division used to Kyouraku-taichou’s benevolent ways.
That’s not even considering all the other undercurrents in Seireitei. The whispers and muffled laughter and general air of unease that permeated everything. She’d gone to the living world just to breathe. To see her old friends. To make sure they were safe and happy. To apologize for ruining their lives.
But like everything else, it wasn’t a smooth trip. She saw Aizen fucking Sousuke alive and well barely five minutes after she’d gotten there. And he’d been at Ichigo’s house. He’d actually talked to Ichigo and simply walked away like it’d been nothing more than a friendly visit.
She hears a roaring in her ears all the way back to Seireitei. All she sees is Aizen with Ichigo. All she thinks is hypnotism and Hollows and that Ichigo looks like he might’ve actually lost to his.
And then, her captain had the story before Rukia could even process who she’d told, and it’d only gotten worse from there. So much worse. So horrible.
Ichigo staring at her with accusation and apologies falling useless from her mouth. Ichigo sentenced and imprisoned and set to be sent to the Maggot’s Nest for the rest of his life.
Rukia cried herself into oblivion that night, under guard by the Onmitsukidoh but not caring. She spent hours throwing up what felt like everything she’d eaten in the last decade. She was still too sick to even realize that dawn had come and she’d left her friend helpless until Chamber 46 demanded her presence the next morning.
The weeks and months following weren’t any better. Between her own guilt and Yachiru, Rukia honestly began to wonder if they’d be better off if she went into Rukongai one day and didn’t come back. The only thing that kept her in Seireitei was her brother. His solidness at her back when she walked through the streets. The softness of his fingers through her hair when he thought her asleep.
She’d never forgive herself if she left him. If Rukia abandoned him like everyone else in his life had.
There were already far too many things she regretted. Too many people she’d failed.
Kaien-dono. Ichigo. Renji. Herself.
But time goes on. Life goes on. Like they always do.
And Rukia wakes to the realization that it’s been nearly half a year since she last saw Ichigo and that the whispers in Seireitei aren’t what they were before. They’re less fearful now. More defiant.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the source. Anyone with eyes and a hint of sense can see that Zaraki-taichou is finally fed up and so are so many others. But intelligence has never been Chamber 46’s strong point, and Rukia honestly thinks that they have no clue what’s going on right in front of their very noses.
But really, nii-sama isn’t fooling anyone. She might not be his sister by blood, but she knows him better than anybody currently living and probably loves him more than all the others combined.
She enters his private office at home that night and kneels down in front of him, and for the first time in her life, she doesn’t gaze at the floor. Instead, her eyes rise to meet his defiantly.
“I want in,” Rukia says before he can form a sentence, and even she’s surprised by the steel in her tone.
A flit of emotions flickers in her brother’s eyes for a second. Surprise. Denial. Worry. Affection even. But Rukia still catches them all, still sees everything he can never say but feels nonetheless.
Regret. Concern. Maybe even love.
He just looks at her, and she looks at him back. His reiatsu is calm and controlled, but the tilt of his chin and the firmness of his mouth give him away. He doesn’t want her involved. He doesn’t want her hurt. He wants her safe, to have plausible deniability if it all goes wrong.
And her eyes tell him back that she doesn’t care. That she can’t be hurt any more than she already has. That even if they lose and she’s safe, that it’ll be nothing short of torture to be without him and her friends. That she’d rather die than sit on the sidelines and wonder the rest of her life if things would different if she stepped up and spoke out.
If she’d been smart enough to speak to her brother about Ichigo instead of going to someone else. If she’d asked Ichigo himself. If she’d actually made an attempt to stay in touch and in his life. If she’d tried with Inoue and Ishida and Sado. If she hadn’t used Renji’s death as an excuse to pull back and pull away to make it so she couldn’t be hurt again.
But she has. And it was her fault. And she has to make this right. She’ll die if she doesn’t, and maybe she deserves that.
Rukia knows he sees all of that in her as surely as she sees him. Nii-sama could say that he’s proud of her. That she’s his sister no matter what. That he’s sorry for all that’s happened.
He could say all of that. Nii-sama doesn’t. He doesn’t need to.
“Be ready before dawn” is what he says instead and reaches to pour her tea.
It’s strong, bitter. Possibly even laced with alcohol if the slow burn is anything to go by as it slides down her throat to warm her belly. But by the end of this night, they’ll both need it.
*****
a/n: I promise I'll fix that nasty cliffhanger next week!
As always, the interludes are written by the wonderfulazardarkstar . Please give her some love by commenting in her journal here!
Title: The Beautiful Lie
Pairings: Urahara/Ichigo, Aizen/Ichigo, Shinji/Nel
Rating: M
Warning: Spoilers for recent chapters, Character death, Yaoi-ness, Post-war fic, Violence
Description: Years after the painful end, the echoes of war still prove their influence, and Ichigo discovers a dead man in his kitchen.
----------------------------------------
Interlude Seven: End of the Beginning
----------------------------------------
Kisuke doesn’t sleep that night. The one before everyone leaves to battle for their lives and their futures without him. He won’t be going. He’ll be staying behind in relative safety and luxury. He’ll be with friends.
He’ll be losing his mind. He’ll be wondering and worrying and waiting for Ichigo to come back.
He isn’t waiting for forgiveness though. Kisuke knows he doesn’t deserve it. He’s a bad man; he understands that. He killed and tortured and imprisoned with only the excuse that he was following orders. That it wasn’t out of malice but duty and then later for science.
Kisuke isn’t a good person. He’s never really been. He’s been selfish and callous if not outwardly and intentionally cruel. He’s lied and manipulated as much as Aizen if not as skillfully. The only difference is that he did it on Seireitei’s time and their dime and was rewarded for things that should’ve had him executed in a sensible world.
But he wasn’t, and he was never brave enough to end it himself. To wrap the Hougyoku in his own soul and then hasten himself onto his next life to protect it.
It was an option. He could’ve done it – should’ve done it. But Kisuke wasn’t willing to sacrifice his own life like he sacrificed so many others.
He’s not good enough for Ichigo. Never will be. Can’t even approach the idea of him.
He was never good enough for Yoruichi either. Never noble enough or rich enough. Powerful enough. Bold enough. Enticing enough.
He was never enough or too much. Too smart. Too nerdy. Too cluttered. Too clumsy. Too much like himself. Too much like the bastard child he is in truth.
He could never make her look at him. See him. Never make her head turn to glance over her shoulder. Kisuke was always in her shadow. One step behind and to the side. Lingering in the darkness as she poured out light and pleasure with everyone but him. Hanging at the sidelines with Soifon, who had hated him so much for being in the same position as her, and waiting for that one scrap of attention.
As much as it hurts, as much as he cried when no one could see him, the fact that Yoruichi left was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. He couldn’t follow her anymore. Couldn’t wallow. Could finally open his eyes and see what had been staring him in the face for years.
Ichigo’s all that Yoruichi is and all she’ll never be.
He’s not good enough for Ichigo either. Kisuke doesn’t care.
He wants him. Loves him. Would give him everything he’s always closely guarded. His heart and his life and his soul.
But not his secrets.
He can’t. He’s too afraid.
Of what Ichigo will think. Of what he’ll know about the man who once shared his bed and his body. That he’ll know the hands that were so gentle and passionate with him weren’t even kind to others. That they’re blood-stained and calloused with the lives of dozens if not hundreds of innocents and that Kisuke never even thought to care until he meet Ichigo.
It’d never occurred to him before then that he’d even done anything wrong. But now, he knows, and Kisuke can’t forget. He can’t unsee their faces in his sleep. Can’t forget all the horrors he unwittingly but willingly committed.
But even more than that, he can’t forget Ichigo’s smile. His laugh. His taste. His eyes as he climaxes. His face as he sleeps. The feel of their reiatsu intertwining and curling around them as they lie together.
Kisuke can’t forget any of that. He doesn’t even want to. He clings to it like a lifeline. Like a promise that he has no right to demand and Ichigo should never give.
It’s all that he has now. He has nothing left.
Just his life. And it really isn’t worth that much. It’s never been. Not even when he was a small boy wondering why the nobles snubbed him.
It’s all he has left to give. The only thing of real value he carries.
But he honestly thinks that Ichigo won’t want it.
Kisuke doesn’t blame him.
The worst mistake Kuchiki Rukia ever makes wasn’t on the night Kaien-dono died or even getting him killed in the first place. It isn’t allowing herself to be adopted by the Kuchiki and leaving Renji behind. It isn’t even being defeated by a pathetically weak Hollow and then giving her powers to a human.
It’s made on a chilly but beautiful day in Karakura as her breath fogs in front of her. She and Ichigo sit on the roof of his house as dawn chases away the last vestiges of the night. The cocoa in her mug has long gone cold, but she toys with the cup and leans her shoulder against Ichigo’s arm.
Then, she asks for one thing – a single favor – that damns not just him but her, too. She asks him for the thing she never should, and later, when the world is crumbling down around her, Rukia understands why.
She should’ve sat there. She should’ve said nothing.
But she doesn’t. She asks for his help. For him to keep being her friend. For him to keep fighting when he shouldn’t.
He was just as boy then. He’s not now. Not anymore.
He was a boy, a silly human boy who could see ghosts, and Rukia had turned him not only into a Shinigami but into something that sometimes was all too much like a killing machine. Something all too much like a Hollow.
A Vizard.
It wasn’t obvious in the beginning. Even when she saw his mask and her only thoughts were worry for him and not fear. But it grew as time went on and the war deepened, and Ichigo kept growing stronger and stronger still. Until he could go days fighting and barely even be breathing hard and then still have lessons in reiatsu-control afterwards without missing a beat. Until he could defeat multiple captains at the same time with both hands tied behind his back and perform shunpo better and faster than Yoruichi-san and Soifon combined.
But then… then, Renji died. He died, and Rukia couldn’t do anything about it. She could only sit numbly next to his body – what was left of it, him – as her brother squeezed her hand until his knuckles were white. Could only watch as they burned him to nothing that night and her brother scattered his ashes throughout the sixth division and Rukongai.
She thinks that’s when things really changed. Not when Ichigo turned to Ukitake-taichou and Kyouraku-taichou for comfort and reassurance but not her. Not when he cried at killing Ulquiorra. Not he just stared out at Seireitei and looked like a stranger then entire time.
That’s when things unraveled. That’s when Ichigo went from her closest friend to a guilt-stricken mess who buried his face in Urahara’s shoulder after a battle but didn’t shed a tear. That’s when Rukia herself looked at her friends – Inoue and Sado and Ishida – and realized how fragile they were, how human. How young.
That’s when Rukia saw it. When she watched Ichigo go from a young man in a fight to protect his family to a war veteran with cold and calculating eyes. But he covered it up so well that Rukia honestly thought she imagined it. She hadn’t though, and it became more obvious as time crept on. As she saw him kill in a way that had sent him shaking for hours afterwards, but now, he did it easily. Thoughtlessly. Carelessly even.
That’s when Rukia didn’t know him anymore. Realized that maybe she never had.
But then, the war ended, and Aizen was defeated, and Rukia could finally breathe again. She drifted from them then, her human friends. It was better that she did. That they got on with their lives and she got on with hers.
Or maybe she was just too afraid she’d see what she’d wrought. What her weakness had done to them. To these innocents she’d unwittingly dragged into a war not of their making. Maybe she didn’t want to see that gleam in Ichigo’s eyes anymore. The look that said he didn’t relish killing but was good at it and would do anything necessary to win.
The following years were harder than she’d thought they’d be. She had friends but not close ones, and being a lieutenant was far less satisfying than it should’ve been. Most of her time was spent doing everything her captain felt was personally beneath her and trying to keep order in a division used to Kyouraku-taichou’s benevolent ways.
That’s not even considering all the other undercurrents in Seireitei. The whispers and muffled laughter and general air of unease that permeated everything. She’d gone to the living world just to breathe. To see her old friends. To make sure they were safe and happy. To apologize for ruining their lives.
But like everything else, it wasn’t a smooth trip. She saw Aizen fucking Sousuke alive and well barely five minutes after she’d gotten there. And he’d been at Ichigo’s house. He’d actually talked to Ichigo and simply walked away like it’d been nothing more than a friendly visit.
She hears a roaring in her ears all the way back to Seireitei. All she sees is Aizen with Ichigo. All she thinks is hypnotism and Hollows and that Ichigo looks like he might’ve actually lost to his.
And then, her captain had the story before Rukia could even process who she’d told, and it’d only gotten worse from there. So much worse. So horrible.
Ichigo staring at her with accusation and apologies falling useless from her mouth. Ichigo sentenced and imprisoned and set to be sent to the Maggot’s Nest for the rest of his life.
Rukia cried herself into oblivion that night, under guard by the Onmitsukidoh but not caring. She spent hours throwing up what felt like everything she’d eaten in the last decade. She was still too sick to even realize that dawn had come and she’d left her friend helpless until Chamber 46 demanded her presence the next morning.
The weeks and months following weren’t any better. Between her own guilt and Yachiru, Rukia honestly began to wonder if they’d be better off if she went into Rukongai one day and didn’t come back. The only thing that kept her in Seireitei was her brother. His solidness at her back when she walked through the streets. The softness of his fingers through her hair when he thought her asleep.
She’d never forgive herself if she left him. If Rukia abandoned him like everyone else in his life had.
There were already far too many things she regretted. Too many people she’d failed.
Kaien-dono. Ichigo. Renji. Herself.
But time goes on. Life goes on. Like they always do.
And Rukia wakes to the realization that it’s been nearly half a year since she last saw Ichigo and that the whispers in Seireitei aren’t what they were before. They’re less fearful now. More defiant.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the source. Anyone with eyes and a hint of sense can see that Zaraki-taichou is finally fed up and so are so many others. But intelligence has never been Chamber 46’s strong point, and Rukia honestly thinks that they have no clue what’s going on right in front of their very noses.
But really, nii-sama isn’t fooling anyone. She might not be his sister by blood, but she knows him better than anybody currently living and probably loves him more than all the others combined.
She enters his private office at home that night and kneels down in front of him, and for the first time in her life, she doesn’t gaze at the floor. Instead, her eyes rise to meet his defiantly.
“I want in,” Rukia says before he can form a sentence, and even she’s surprised by the steel in her tone.
A flit of emotions flickers in her brother’s eyes for a second. Surprise. Denial. Worry. Affection even. But Rukia still catches them all, still sees everything he can never say but feels nonetheless.
Regret. Concern. Maybe even love.
He just looks at her, and she looks at him back. His reiatsu is calm and controlled, but the tilt of his chin and the firmness of his mouth give him away. He doesn’t want her involved. He doesn’t want her hurt. He wants her safe, to have plausible deniability if it all goes wrong.
And her eyes tell him back that she doesn’t care. That she can’t be hurt any more than she already has. That even if they lose and she’s safe, that it’ll be nothing short of torture to be without him and her friends. That she’d rather die than sit on the sidelines and wonder the rest of her life if things would different if she stepped up and spoke out.
If she’d been smart enough to speak to her brother about Ichigo instead of going to someone else. If she’d asked Ichigo himself. If she’d actually made an attempt to stay in touch and in his life. If she’d tried with Inoue and Ishida and Sado. If she hadn’t used Renji’s death as an excuse to pull back and pull away to make it so she couldn’t be hurt again.
But she has. And it was her fault. And she has to make this right. She’ll die if she doesn’t, and maybe she deserves that.
Rukia knows he sees all of that in her as surely as she sees him. Nii-sama could say that he’s proud of her. That she’s his sister no matter what. That he’s sorry for all that’s happened.
He could say all of that. Nii-sama doesn’t. He doesn’t need to.
“Be ready before dawn” is what he says instead and reaches to pour her tea.
It’s strong, bitter. Possibly even laced with alcohol if the slow burn is anything to go by as it slides down her throat to warm her belly. But by the end of this night, they’ll both need it.
a/n: I promise I'll fix that nasty cliffhanger next week!
As always, the interludes are written by the wonderful
azardarkstar . Please give her some love by commenting in her journal here!
