AN: Welcome to Dancing In The Snow - Guardian Angel. This story takes place in the universe described in Dancing In The Snow although most of the information you need to know is covered in this chapter for those that are impatient, and this one will cover all events that happen after Ichigo regains his powers. For further information on the backstory covered in this chapter, please read Dancing In The Snow, that will continue to be updated periodically alongside this one until I have finished the Winter War.

My name is Rukia Kuchiki.

Two years ago, I was a Shinigami.

I gave my powers to a human named Ichigo Kurosaki as a last ditch effort to save his life against a Hollow that attacked him and his family. In doing so, I committed a crime against my home; Soul Society, of the greatest severity.

I befriended, stuck around him and made him do my job for me. I had thought I ruined his life. I thought I caused him so much pain and suffering when I thrust that sword into his chest and transferred my powers to him.

One day that guilt boiled to a head. You see, I always knew that eventually Soul Society would learn of my actions and come after me.

I had expected to sneak away at night and disappear quietly, with Ichigo never learning of what happened to me.

I underestimated his desire to protect all his loved ones.

I underestimated my ability to become one of those loved ones.

He showed up that night, fought my brother and my childhood friend in a desperate attempt to save me from my fate. He called on that piece of my soul that I transferred to him in order to give him the power to even try that.

Despite his best efforts, at that point in time he didn't have the power to defeat my brother. And I was taken away to Soul Society.

For three weeks, I withered away in a tower, contemplating my fate and learning of a new side of my soul. A pair of twins from my long forgotten past. Twins who had given their lives to save me from a hollow masquerading as a Shinigami. A pair of twins that had waited for a lifetime for me to give them names. A lifetime in Hueco Mundo, subduing the hollow that had devoured them.

Their desire to come back to me, combined with their ability to teleport, was so strong that they warped reality and merged with my soul. Taking the place of my absent Zanpakuto.

Turns out, my execution was all planned from the very beginning. Sosuke Aizen had betrayed all of Soul Society to further his own power. My execution was a sham. A plan to retrieve an artifact known as the Hogyoku from the inner depths of my soul.

Ichigo came to save me. All part of Aizen's plan as well...a distraction in order to allow him to go about his plans undetected.

Ichigo was more stubborn than even Aizen expected.

He stopped the Sokyoku, the instrument of my demise. And then allowed my former Captain, Jushiro Ukitake and his best friend Shunsui Kyoraku, to destroy the Sokyoku and prevent that plan to extract the Hogyoku.

Of course, the mad genius that Aizen was, wouldn't have gone through all that trouble without having a backup plan.

When he finally did retrieve his prize from my soul, the method he used to do so turned me into...this. A hollow. An Arrancar.

I knew that I would not be forgiven of my crime. Nor of becoming a Hollow. I knew that Ichigo could not be forgiven for tearing Soul Society asunder to save my life. And I knew that the hollow within me had the power to erase memories.

So I used them.

I unleashed my resurreccion that day, and I turned to the man who had gone through hell to save me, along with his friends. I erased him from existence, swiping my scythe through his body, I erased all memory of him from Soul Society. All memory of my crime, and I teleported away with him in a flash of black and violet lightning back to the living world. Back to his home in Karakura town.

Yoruichi Shihoin was there waiting for me, all members of his crusade to rescue me having retained their memories, all having returned to the human world through a garganta opened by what I would later learn was the de facto leader of the Vizard. They all returned to their human lives, hiding in the shadows away from Soul Society.

When Ichigo awoke, I had to explain to him what he had done. I had to tell him in my words about his crusade, because due to my actions, he had forgotten all of it.

All of the pain that he went through to save me.

The idiot didn't even have the decency to look at me like I was a monster for erasing his memory of that. He just said I must have had a good reason, and that he believed eventually he would get the memories back anyway, just because I was his friend.

He was right, of course. He did regain his memories, at a speed that concerned me at first, until I realized that the only reason he retained them was because we had a far deeper bond than just friends like he claimed.

He still held a piece of my soul. He still wielded my Zanpakuto.

He had also unlocked and subdued his Inner Hollow just to save me.

Both of those pieces of his soul wouldn't allow him to simply forget what had happened.

It took him two weeks to fully regain those memories. When he had, he insisted that we stop Aizen. We didn't really have to; He'd been removed from the memory of Aizen too. We, quite simply, weren't needed. I was more than happy to stay in the living world with him forever. To leave my old life behind and let Aizen do whatever he wished with Soul Society.

Instead, for the two months after we returned from Soul Society, I learned of Ichigo's fears over the Inner Hollow he had. How he was always on guard for it trying to take over his life. The protector who now had to protect his friends from himself. I had known of the Hollow before, of course. He had first displayed it after I had revealed my resurreccion on Sokyoku Hill; donning his mask in a silent show of support that had been much appreciated.

For two months, me and Sode no Shirayuki had tried to talk to him. To remind him that his hollow wasn't just any other hollow. It was a part of his soul. It wanted whatever he wanted, it just had a different way of getting whatever that was. Usually a more brutal, blunt, and straightforward approach, but it was by no means a monster and it didn't have to be feared.

Eventually, that didn't work. My racial brethren...the Arrancar...eventually attacked Karakura town and targeted Orihime for her unique ability to reject reality...I suppose they didn't notice that I, to an extent, also had that ability. Mostly because I never showed it. I stayed by Ichigo's side all the time, in my Shinobi-esque sealed form.

We invaded Hueco Mundo to bring Orihime back, relying a lot on my inner hollow's - and the twins' - knowledge of Hueco Mundo to navigate and survive. Along the way, Ichigo achieved Bankai.

My bankai.

You'd think I would feel jealous that Ichigo achieved Bankai with my Zanpakuto before I did, but that point I was already starting to realize something that I now knew...we'll get back to that in a moment.

Turns out that we became part of a plan to swap out the real Karakura Town with a fake one, tricking Aizen into one final battle in a war that we would otherwise have nothing to do with. A plan developed by the Vizard and Urahara, with Soul Society finding themselves completely unwitting participants.

Of course they were. It was plan that would save their entire dimension. One we'd only developed because we determined it necessary to save Karakura Town.

To get to him, we had to go through the Espada. A group of ridiculously strong Arrancar loyal only to Aizen. The most annoying of them, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Ulquiorra Cifer, and Aaroniero Arruruerie.

Aaroniero, an Arrancar that had absorbed the powers of Metastacia. Absorbed the powers...and visage and Zanpakuto...of Kaien Shiba. A blast from my past, to say the least. Ulquiorra, cold, callous, and indifferent. A being that both rivaled the intelligent, Quincy side of Ichigo's personality, and thoroughly insulted Ichigo's passionate, protective side. On the other end of things; Grimmjow. A being that rivaled Ichigo's instinctive, hollow side and simply irritated that daylights out of both of us.

During that final fight, Ichigo achieved his own resurreccion. A fused form with his inner hollow, that, combined with Sode no Shirayuki's bankai, was enough to get past that annoying kitty cat.

It wasn't enough to get past Aizen.

Try as he might, he just couldn't do it. And eventually, he'd been forced to go to his last resort after I had been knocked out of the fight.

He removed his Sanrei glove.

An act which granted him a brief period of unimaginable power. A bright flame that would rage for a short time, and then flicker out and die, taking his power with it.

It was exactly what he needed.

We were able to celebrate the victory for a short time, before it became apparent exactly how quickly his powers were fading. I was disappearing to him.

His last act, before I completely disappeared from view, was to stab me in the stomach...for my chest was now home to a hollow hole that could not be stabbed...and transfer the remainder of his powers to me. To transfer my powers back to me.

I had Sode no Shirayuki back.

He told me that it was his final gift to me. A chance to go back home. To be a shinigami again. To live.

That was almost a year and a half ago.

I stayed in Karakura town, watching over him and his family. His sister Karin knows I do it, but she has never said a word. I have never went to Urahara's to get a gigai in order to tell him such either.

All the same, every day of watching him feels like it's tearing my soul in two.

He is miserable without his powers. The powers I had given him so long ago and thought I had ruined his life in doing so, were causing him the pain I had feared now in their absence.

He went through the motions of life. At first pretending that everything was alright, and then eventually he shut everyone out. After months of this, seeing him so...lost...without his powers, I have finally decided...that it's time to have a talk with my Zanpakuto.

It's awkward, having Shirayuki back. For fifty years before I met Ichigo, I had shut her out. I had ignored her. I had refused to call on her for fear of reliving the night I killed Kaien again.

For a few brief months, Ichigo had called on her over and over again. Trusted her in a way I never had and treated her like a friend. A companion. In some ways even, a lover.

I would be jealous of her, but in a way, she's part of my own soul. So it was kind of flattering.

Then he'd returned her to me. And it was still awkward. I don't feel like a Shinigami anymore. I haven't ever since I gave him my powers. I had accepted that the day I became an Arrancar. I felt guilty for all the years that I had ignored her and treated her like a tool.

"Shira." I called once I found myself in the snow-covered landscape of my inner world, seeing her sitting on a ledge. Behind me, somewhere, I could hear Shizuku and Homura playing tag, and my Inner Hollow, in snake form, slithering around and watching them.

"Hm? Oh, Hi Rukia." The Yuki-onna replied to me, and I gave her a small, sad smile.

"You miss Ichigo." It wasn't a question. I knew she did. She missed having that person who needed her. I didn't. I had Shizuku and Homura. I had my inner hollow. And even when I hadn't, I had still shut her out.

Ichigo had needed her when he had her. She was the balance in his soul. She took the two sides of him...Kuro Zangetsu, the old man, his inner Quincy. The darkness. The wisdom. The knowledge and the experience...And Shiro Zangetsu, his inner Hollow. The light. The instinct. The feral energy and his base desires...and helped him to listen to them both without choosing one or the other.

Helped him to use the strength of Shiro without turning into a mindless beast.

Helped him to use the experience of the Old Man without becoming an emotionless machine.

And I knew, there was a way to give him his powers back. It would be so simple...just stab him through the chest with Sode no Shirayuki, like I had done so long ago, and transfer her back to him.

But that would involve forever rejecting Shirayuki from my soul.

It would involve throwing Ichigo's last gift to me back in his face.

Still...I have to. I can't go on, watching him live like this anymore. I can't stand watching Shirayuki and Ichigo suffer and deny their own greatest wishes, simply to appease one they thought I had. And maybe I had wished for that at some point, but just because I wished for it to be possible, doesn't mean it would ever happen...even now that I have the power.

I was never going to go back to Soul Society and be a Shinigami again anyway. That just wasn't who I was anymore. Nor was I going to go to Hueco Mundo and be your run of the mill Arrancar. I had never been like that.

So...this conversation had to happen.

"It's okay. I do too." I continued, moving to sit down next to my Zanpakuto, leaning back and shifting my weight onto my hands, looking into the sky, where a gentle flurry of snowflakes was falling steadily. A tear came to my cheek, knowing that after this conversation...that snow would forever be gone from my Inner World.

"Do you want to go back?" I asked, turning my head to look at her. "Don't lie. I know you do. You sit here, every day. Thinking about him." With that, I turned back to the sky, barreling on without giving her the chance to reply. "And he needs you. He needs you a lot more than I deserve you. For a lifetime, I shut you out, all because I couldn't stand to face my own actions." I closed my eyes and let out a sigh.

"I've been able to use your Bankai ever since he gave you back to me, and yet...I can't use it for more than 3 minutes without hurting myself with it. He could use your Bankai for hours on end and never have to worry about it. You belong with him. Not here."

When I opened my eyes, they were full of tears again.

"Rukia…" Shirayuki started, looking sad...but at the same time, infinitely happy that I was even offering her the chance to go back to Ichigo.

"Shh...don't say anything." I smiled at her, tears falling down my face unchecked. "Just take care of him. Alright?"

She nodded emphatically, and I saw the whispers of frosty tears falling down her own face.

I grabbed her hand and stood, pulling her to her feet with me.

"Goodbye, Shirayuki." I whispered, and hugged her, shivering at the chill that ran through my body for the final time.

And then I opened my eyes, brandished her blade, and teleported to Ichigo, shoving the blade deep into Ichigo's back and through his chest from my position behind him, while he faced off against Kugo Ginjo. The first ever substitute Shinigami and a man determined to rob Ichigo of the last vestiges of spiritual power that he'd managed to recover.

I poured all of my shinigami power into the blade, even while Ichigo gasped in surprise, and the world exploded with light.

When it faded, We stood across from each other in a dome made of light. Ichigo in black Shihakusho, looking at me with wide eyes. Me, standing in my Arrancar shinobi outfit and smiling back at him. "Oi, baka-mono."

"Rukia? What...why?"

"Because you need it. You need her. And I need you." I whisper, stepping forward and putting a hand to his chest. "More than I need to be a Shinigami. More than I need a chance to go back to Soul Society."

"Rukia…"

"Don't. Just...take it. And be happy. I will be by your side, like I always have been. Even when you couldn't see me."

I didn't expect the idiot to kiss me like I was a gasp of fresh air in a vacuum, or a drop of water in the desert.

But I wasn't about to complain either. I wrapped my arms around his neck and returned it with all the passion that my inner hollow was encouraging me to show. Cheering me on in the back of my head, back in her human form.

My strawberry's back.