Seven Days | By : debbiechan Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 7982 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Seven Days (in seven drabbles)
by debbiechan
Disclaimer: Kubo Tite, Perriot Studios and Viz Comics own Bleach, but because imaginations can not be held for ransom (even in the most capitalistic society), there is fanfiction.
Description: NC-17. Seven days pass in Soul Society after Aizen ascends and before the portal to the Other World is opened, and here are seven drabbles, each taking place during one of those days. This ficlet continues in the vein of "Eleven Lovers"--a tiny more emphasis on the sex than on romantic attachments this time, hence the rating. The featured characters are Renji, Rukia, Byakuya, Ichigo, Ishida, Yoruichi, Soi Fong, Nemu, and (in a way) Hisana. Formula-wise, I tried to keep short drabbles under 300 words and the longer ones under 1000 words and failed with only #6 (because when it comes to Ishida, I tend to go a little over the edge. ^_^ )
Warnings: Explicit descriptions of S-E-X (yuri and het) and spoilers for just about the whole Soul Society arc.
Dedicated to Bardockgurl because I wouldn’t be as mentally ill over Bleach if it weren’t for her love of all these characters!
Day #1
It did not escape Renji’s notice that Rukia ran to her brother’s bedside first.
Renji’s bed was closest to the door, and next to Renji’s bed was Ichigo’s. Maybe, thought Renji, she didn’t see me because of all Ichigo’s people. The four-eyes and pretty girl were kneeling on either side of Ichigo’s bed, but the giant boy and the Shiba clansman were standing, crowding Renji’s view.
He could just make out Rukia’s cheek pressed against Byakuya’s large white hand, her eyes gleaming with devotion.
Renji had known Rukia longer than anyone--hundreds of years--and not once had he been on the receiving end of such a Rukia look.
Fifty years had Rukia been in the Kuchiki family, and only now was affection being displayed between brother and adopted sister. Rukia had served only a handful of years under Vice Captain Kaien, but of course, she had turned starry-eyed for Kaien right away. She had lived with Ichigo mere weeks, and wouldn’t you know it--she turned to gaze at Ichigo next! Despite a slight smile, her face was slack, tragic, and dopey with love.
"Change your clothes, filthy girl!" Renji called to her. Rukia was still wearing her brother’s blood on white prisoner’s robes. "Go get something to eat. We didn’t rescue you to have you drip snot and tears all over us."
"Renji!" She looked across the width of Ichigo’s bed, and the intensity of her gaze sideswiped Renji like a ninja’s shiruken. He should not have doubted that those huge dark eyes were going to spare him. "Can you stand? How badly are--?" Her voice trembled. "How much longer do you have to stay here?"
This unstrung person wasn’t the Rukia he knew. This was a person beaten down by long days of despair.
"I have to stay here. You don’t." Renji willed his body, with some difficulty, to a sitting position. "And I don’t want to hear another thank-you from you. You owe us miserable fighters nothing, and all Soul Society owes you. If the execution had gone as planned--"
The others were all staring at him now, even Byakuya with those solemn black eyes and Ichigo with his clueless brown ones.
"If the execution had happened," Renji went on. "We all would be in much worse shape than we are now. Aizen would have escaped without anyone the wiser. Now we have time to prepare for his next move."
"That makes sense," offered Ichigo. He looked more uncomfortable with Rukia’s frazzled state than anyone else.
"Because we fought to save you," Renji cocked his chin in Rukia’s direction, "it is you who saved Soul Society. Now go home."
"Idiot!" Rukia snapped. "You were never any good at logic."
Renji grinned--this was the Rukia he knew. Then his grin turned into a grimace.
"Look at you!" Rukia was pointing to his chest and the fresh blood seeping through the bandages. "You can’t even sit up without exerting yourself. Lie back down!"
"Bah! I am stronger than you can imagine. I have ban kai now." They were boastful words but Renji didn’t care. He wanted the whole infirmary to know.
"Renji is right, Rukia," said Byakuya. The captain’s hand, amazingly, was still holding his sister’s. "You need to go home, to the Kuchiki house. I’ll have one of the captains--Ukitake or someone who questioned the execution from the start--escort you there himself." Byakuya’s voice still rang with authority, even though there was no clear authority in Soul Society at the moment. "I will have this captain tell the servants to attend to nothing but your will."
Renji watched as Rukia’s eyes shot from face to face. Why did she still look so lost?
Renji had not cared about Soul Society while he was fighting. It could have all crumbled to dust for all he cared. His own captain, all his men--Renji would have waded through their blood to rescue Rukia.
"Rukia--" began Ichigo, but Byakuya’s stern look cut him off.
"Go home," repeated Byakuya. "Change out of these … humiliating clothes. You are a Kuchiki. Whatever happens now, there will be no further prosecution against you."
"Yes, Ni-sama," she said and bowed her head.
At that moment it occurred to Renji that all of Soul Society was going to treasure Rukia from now on. At one time, he had been her only protector. There had been no need to name the feeling between them.
"Tomorrow, Rukia," Renji said. He felt dizzy and eased himself back to a lying position. "I’ll see you tomorrow…"
Maybe tomorrow, Renji thought, she will understand that the one who loved her first is the one who still loves her best.
Day #2
"I accentuated the shirt’s features with lace." --Ishida, chapter 180:6
Ishida’s needle once again snagged the fine fabric, unraveling the material instead of stitching it to a flower decoupage.
"Kuso!"
His own clothes had been easier to make. Hanatarou had shown him where in-patient kimonos were kept, and Ishida had used the coarse, white fabric to fashion a new set of Quincywear for himself.
That heavy material would not do for Inoue’s shirt, though. Inoue always wore jersey fabrics that clung to her figure. Ishida had looked all over Soul Society for something clingy enough, and this morning he had been lucky enough to come across this piece of silky blue. There wasn’t going to be any of the fabric left, however, if he kept ruining it with this clumsy needle!
If only he had his powers, he could summon a spiritron beam to whittle the needle to a more manageable sharpness….
Stop thinking like that, Ishida.
He pulled a wad of white lace from a basket of scraps. Yes, he would have to give up the idea of a tiny ornament and stitch something larger onto the front of the shirt.
Large…like Inoue’s—
Ishida flattened his palm at the shirt’s neckline and began to run his hand in smooth strokes across the fabric. His fingers pressed against the area where Inoue’s bosom would be.
He would have to estimate centimeters from the nipple’s very top to the bottom dip where roundness met chestbone. The lace was not elastic, so his measurements needed to be precise.
Ishida unrolled the lace. He would spend the rest of the day imagining the size of Inoue’s right breast.
Day #3
Yoruichi had never really understood what people were talking about when they mentioned "missing" her.
Granted, it was nice to be thought of as such a bright light that life’s joy was diminished when you weren’t around, but Yoruichi did not see anyone that way. For her, life (or rather, Death) was a series of windows, each one brighter than the next, and there was no having to choose which one to open--they were all open, and she was free to look out of each in turn.
The night she would leave for Soul Society, Kisuke had said, "Ah, they will all be so pained to realize how much they’ve missed you," and Yoruichi had not known what in the world he was talking about. Who will be pained? Her arrogant little kohai Byakuya? Her former students and servants?
The last time Yoruichi had returned to the Urahara Shop after a couple years absence, Kisuke had screeched like a girl and laughed and picked up Yoruichi’s little cat body and had held her high--black paws dangling--over his ecstatic face. The guy was a loon. That was why she loved him; no one else understood her freedom so completely.
For the Urahara shopkeeper as well, Experience was a never-ending row of open windows, but unlike Yoruichi, he seemed to understand sorrow. In fact, he seemed to understand everything. Urahara Kisuke viewed the commoner and noble, the spirited and the melancholy, the free spirit and the chained soul with equal compassion. So, when Yoruichi returned to Soul Society and saw Soi Fong fall weeping on the ground at the height of their first spar in one hundred years, Yoruichi’s first thought was: That bastard was right again!
Soi Fong was now sitting in the hot spring of Yoruichi’s secret hideaway. The little ninja did look pained. The steam, water, and warmth that would relax anyone else seemed to have no effect on Soi Fong. Her black hair stuck to her neck, and her face looked drawn and grim.
But hadn’t Soi Fong always looked like that? She had always been such a serious, disciplined girl. Surely her current gloominess didn’t have anything to do with Yoruichi.
"Cheer up, Little Bee! You survived the whole day’s training!"
Soi Fong shot Yoruichi a sour look. "Survived? If you were a true enemy, I would not have survived. I broke all my weapons and lost all my clothes."
"Feh! There’s not a man in the whole Gotei 13 who could have withstood shunkuo so well as you did today." Yoruichi stepped into the steaming spring. She was already nude; her clothes had hours ago been shredded by blasts of energy. The scraps of Soi Fong’s black uniform lay on a smooth rock at the spring’s edge.
"Tomorrow," Yoruichi said, "we will have to raid the second division’s supply closets. I know I left at least a dozen back-less shirts in a drawer with first year daggers and--"
"You’re amazing," Soi Fong said dryly, even though she was up to her neck in water. "You leave for one hundred years and you expect things to be exactly where you left them?"
Yoruichi waded towards Soi Fong and sat directly across from her. Being significantly taller, Yoruichi was only immersed in the spring to her nipples.
"Tell me what’s changed, then," said Yoruichi. "Beyond Aizen’s getting friendly with the Menos Grande, I haven’t seen much to impress me in Soul Society. Public executions! Such things are already considered primitive in the Living World."
Soi Fong met her eyes. The pain there told Yoruichi that the young captain was not in the mood to talk about politics and history.
"I will tell you what should have changed." For the second or third time that day Soi Fong’s eyes filled with tears. "I should have become much stronger than I am…. So much time has passed, and I--I am not that strong."
"Is that it?" Yoruichi felt an odd pang of disappointment. "You’re upset because of your powers?" She snorted into the misty air. "And here I thought you were upset because you had been missing me all these years."
"You don’t understand, Yoruichi-sama." Soi Fong was looking at her with raw grief. Maybe tears were spilling, but it was hard to tell in the steam what moisture was coming from where. "I was talking about missing you."
Yoruichi smiled in spite of herself.
All she wanted to do was take the sadness away. Yoruichi leaned forward and cupped Soi Fong’s face in her hands. "Little Bee, you don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to fight it." She closed her eyes and brought her mouth against the little ninja’s glistening cheek . "Go ahead," she whispered. Her breath kissed Soi Fong’s lips but her mouth did not. "You may touch me the way you used to."
There was a little strangled moan from deep inside Soi Fong’s throat, and then her hands were in Yoruichi’s hair, her tongue in Yoruichi’s mouth. Yoruichi tasted salt and knew that Soi Fong’s face was wet from tears, not spring water.
As the two fighters’ bodies pressed against one another and as their wounds burned in the hot, healing water, Yoruichi remembered the deep difference between a male partner and a female one. In love or battle a woman used more demon art, less resistance, and a circular path towards no particular goal. Soi Fong’s tongue lapped at her breast. There was no conquest. Yoruichi’s palms rubbed Soi Fong’s slick buttocks underwater. There was no possessiveness. Although Yoruichi knew that she, the sensei, would always be faster, smarter, stronger than Soi Fong, here her pupil had the broader emotional palette; Soi Fong’s fingers told stories of delight and despair. Every touch, every kiss, every moan. Soi Fong’s whole body spoke of longing: I missed you, I am missing you, I will always miss you.
And Yoruichi’s body knew only joy.
Day #4
The five years I spent with you were like a dream.--Hisana’s words, recounted by Byakuya, manga chapter 179:13
Is it possible for one minute of the day to be more vivid and meaningful than all the rest of it?
Byakuya prided himself on his memory. He could recall names and faces from a thousand years past; he could recount whole conversations verbatim. He knew the full value of history’s lessons.
And he understood that he would always measure his years in Before Hisana, Hisana, and After Hisana.
Each day, likewise, was divided into those three parts. He woke up and dressed, held out his hand for a hell butterfly and checked its messages while the servants brought him tea and bread. That was all Before Hisana. Then he would open the lacquered cabinet that contained her shrine.
"Good morning, Hisana," he said to a smiling picture.
It was the fourth day after Aizen had ascended from Soul Society, and Byakuya apologized to his wife for not having spoken to her since that time. "I was in the infirmary," he explained. "I was cut by a sword that was meant to kill your sister."
The girl in the picture did not change expression, but this morning her soulful black eyes reminded Byakuya of Rukia: "Why for me, Ni-sama? Why for me?"
"She knows," Byakuya told the picture. "Your sister deserved to know that you were the reason she was adopted by the Kuchiki clan. She knows all of it. I told her."
Incense burned quietly for another minute or so. Then Byakuya closed the cabinet.
The rest of the day was After Hisana.
Day #5
A cabbage butterfly appeared, flitting across the courtyard. Rukia had been sitting next to Renji for hours, but something about the hesitant, stammering movement of the butterfly from shrub to shrub reminded her that she had other stops to make within the Seireitei today.
"I’m going to be late for tea," she said, rising from the bench. "I promised Ni-sama--"
Renji stood too, muttering something about a vice-captains’ meeting.
"I can’t help but imagine," said Rukia, "how much easier it would have been on Ni-sama if someone, anyone, a servant maybe, had slipped up and told me about Hisana years ago."
"Well," said Renji with an odd look on his face. "There is such a thing as waiting for the right time to tell someone something."
There was a charged pause in the conversation while Renji tried to rearrange his features into nonchalance, and Rukia tried to figure out what the hell was up with him.
"What?" asked Rukia. She was suddenly very curious. She knew Renji too well not to know that he was keeping a secret. "What is it? Tell me."
Renji put his hand on Rukia’s shoulder. "Nothing. Military things. Don’t worry about anything now. I will tell you later."
She leaned into him and gave him a quick, earnest hug. "I’ll be back tomorrow."
She walked away with the unsettling feeling that ever since saying goodbye before her execution, her days had been a series of goodbyes.
Day #6
Because he had finished sewing everyone’s clothes and had no other excuse for avoiding social interaction, Ishida decided to take a long walk through the vast corridors of the Seireitei. It took him all morning to reach the North Gate, which was called Kokuryou, black land, for no reason Ishida could see. The stone walls were as nondescript as elsewhere.
The concept that it was going to take all afternoon to walk back came to him without regret; he really didn’t want to be doing anything else.
He had gone for hours without seeing a soul, so when he when he turned around and found himself face to face with a Shinigami, he yelled.
Nemu blinked, unperturbed.
"Excuse me," Ishida stammered, trying to recompose his dignity. "I’m sorry. I didn’t expect--"
"Didn’t you know I was following you?" The girl’s voice was expressionless. "I assumed that you could sense reiatsu."
"Uh, yes," Ishida lied. He didn’t want to explain that he’d lost his powers. It was true that he hadn’t lost them all; he could see a red spirit thread waving in front of Nemu’s waist, but the image was faint. "I wasn’t keeping track of you. I wasn’t thinking of you as an enemy or threat." Ishida felt himself tense into battle-preparedness. "I didn’t expect--"
"You didn’t expect me to show myself," said Nemu.
"No, I didn’t." he said in what he thought was a hard, intimidating voice. "What do you want?"
"Forgive me." The Shinigami cast her eyes downward with what seemed to be studied modesty. "I only wanted to thank you again for sparing Mayuri-sama’s life."
She was a cool beauty. Her long black braid reached the hem of a very short black skirt, and from there, no fabric covered her smooth white legs. Ishida found himself wondering if the deliberately provocative outfit was of her own choosing or if her father forced her to dress like that.
"You already thanked me." Ishida dropped his voice to a kinder timbre. "You saved my life, so there’s nothing more to--"
Nemu dropped to her knees. With one fluid movement she lifted the front of Ishida’s white Quincy tunic and tucked her head beneath. Her soft fingers landed on each of his hips and held him there. Her face nuzzled his crotch.
"What are you doing?" he gasped, although he knew full well what she was doing. "Stop," he said, although he didn’t want her to stop.
It was broad daylight. Soul Society skies were blue, and the corridors of Kokuryou were vast and unpopulated. Ishida felt his back fall against a stone wall as Nemu pulled his loose waistband down to the knees. He could only feel, not see, what she was doing.
Even though Ishida had never had a blow-job before, he had read about one, and for a moment, the wet warmth of Nemu’s mouth felt as distant from his own experience as reading about a sexual act in a book. This is not happening to me; this is happening to someone else.
Then she began to work her tongue down his length, and he felt his hips buck forward.
"Please," he heard himself say, although he had no idea what he was pleading for. That amazing tongue was teasing him, and his hands were rising, useless and uncertain, into the air. They wanted to touch that lump that was Nemu’s head under the white cloth, but Ishida didn’t dare make a gesture of consent. I am completely being taken advantage of here. The feeling that he was being thanked, however, was inescapable; in some cultures, if you save someone’s life, your shoes are showered with flower petals, so maybe Shinigami…?
Then the lump that was Nemu’s head began to bob, and Ishida heard himself groan. She couldn’t move fast enough. Obviously, she was practiced at this, but all Ishida wanted was relief from the pleasure that gripped him hostage.
He lifted his head and looked around. Dirt floor, stone wall, blue sky. The girl had to be aware of the intimacy of what she was doing or else she would not have waited to catch him alone, but the way she was thanking him was so perfunctory, so emotionless.
"Please."
She had neither increased the back and forth pace of her lips nor strengthened the sucking motions of her cheeks, so Ishida was surprised when he released--with a soft coughing sound and a trembling in his lower body. Nemu held him deep in her mouth, and Ishida felt her swallow. Is she supposed to do that? He had the feeling that everything about this experience was against protocol, but he would speculate about all that later.
At the moment, he had never felt so powerless. He was leaning against the wall with his hands dangling at his sides. He felt drained of everything except his curiosity. "Why--?" His voice was hoarse. "What--?"
He felt her adjust his pants, and then her head emerged from under his clothes. Her face looked calm and unmoved, and she rose to her feet as if getting up from morning prayers.
"All I wanted to do was thank you," she said. Her slight smile was like the one she had worn when Ishida told her he really had meant to kill her father. "The portal to your world will be opened soon, and I wish you a safe journey."
And just like that, she was gone. Ishida’s diminished Quincy powers could not even detect her first few flash steps. It was as if she had vanished into thin air, and for all Ishida knew, she could still be nearby, watching him.
Somehow, though, he knew that she wasn’t.
On the very long walk back, the reality of what had happened seemed to grow stronger. It was as if the whole thing became more authentic the more he thought about it--even though while happening, it had been like a dream.
Ishida felt that he could not leave Soul Society soon enough. His heart ached with sadness for Nemu because he figured that she had learned to give thanks that way from her father, but there was nothing he could do about that. In a couple days the portal to the Living World would be opened.
Goodbye, he felt his heart say. Goodbye, Soul Society.
He had lost his Quincy powers here, as well as his innocence.
Day #7
"I’ve decided… to remain here."--Rukia to Ichigo, chapter 181:14
Yoruichi had changed back into a cat and was sleeping on a chair.
"Woah," said Ichigo. "I almost sat on you. You’re--look at you, you’re so small. For some reason, I didn’t expect you to change back while we were still in Soul Society."
Yoruichi looked at Ichigo through slanted, sleepy eyes. "Sometimes," she said, "I prefer being inconspicuous." She sat up and began to stretch. "Besides, it will be easier for me to go through the Reshi Henkaki tomorrow in a tinier body."
Ichigo looked puzzled for a moment. "Tomorrow?" He scratched his head. "I guess there’s no real reason for us to stay any longer, but didn’t Ukitake say something about a … a … reconstruction meeting?"
"Gotei 13 business," said Yoruichi. "None of our concern. Don’t tell me you expected to be made a captain here just because you achieved ban kai."
"Oh, no way," Ichigo said, laughing, and Yoruichi noted that the boy had a very pleasant laugh. She had never heard it before.
"You’ll still be a Shinigami," Yoruichi told him. "Your powers will not diminish when we return to the Other World. How you will use these powers is up to you, of course." She did not add and up to Kisuke but she thought those words.
The cat and the boy sat in silence together for a while, and then Ichigo said, "It’s funny to think that the whole time I was becoming a Shinigami, Rukia was becoming a human. Was Urahara ever planning on telling her that she was going to be stuck in that body forever?"
Yoruichi leapt off the chair and stretched some more. "How should I know? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She’s Shinigami again and should get all her powers back soon enough and return to harassing you as always."
"No," said Ichigo quietly. " Rukia told me today that she’s decided to stay in Soul Society."
"I see," said Yoruichi, and she could tell by the look on Ichigo’s face that he was already missing her.
End
Notes:
Shunkou: Yoruichi’s fighting method which combines demon arts with hand to hand combat.
Reshi Henkaki: spirit converter and portal between the worlds of the Living and Dead
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