Orihime peeked out the curtains in the front room, a few lights shone down the street, puddles of yellow luminescence barely disturbing the miasmic-like darkness. Sora's light footstep sounded close by. "Worried, 'hime-chan?" His sister thought her own fears silly and sighed away, pushing the thin fabric closed. "Yeah," she turned and gave him a soft slightly guilty grin.

"Maybe I shouldn't have sent Rukia out...you know how afraid she is of the dark!"

Sora gathered the day's paper from the pile of a mail on the counter, his eyebrow tilting up in Orihime's direction. "Um...I thought that was you who were afraid of the dark?"

She giggled self-consciously in response.

...

Shunpo made the town blocks fly in blurs, his steps silent, swift, fleetingly through one dark alleyway after another, a peculiar pressure lay stilted in his chest, sluggish beside every palpitating breath of his heart. Fear. The old fear of never making it in time. Kurosaki shut his emotions, forced himself to breathe. This wasn't like before. Kuchiki-sama wasn't running this time.

Rounding the last street corner, his amber eyes flew first to the girl sprawled on the pavement, her face a study of terror, a scream fighting its way from her throat - to the beast crawling on all fours toward her.

Large as a small car, body red fur-covered, hide thick, clawed feet indenting the asphalt with each scrabbling motion. The head of the creature hung upside down, slavering jaws agape where a hissing noise issued forth. The girl shrieked again, her hands fumbling over the ground, searching for any weapon - he had to admire her presence of mind, finding it somewhere within him to smirk, striding out of the shadows as he did.

"Well, well, well. Metatascia. Where'd you drag your ugly mug out of from?"

The kumo-type Hollow turned its dozen eyes upon him, the hissing noise refining itself to a deep slithery hiss. "So, still alive, Kurosaki? Rude as ever for a human."

"'Course." He casually dropped the bag with a clang to the ground, propping one hand on his narrow hip. "Someone's gotta keep the trash like you out of normal people's way." He could sense the looks tossed his way, the girl's spark of understanding - she wasn't crazy - there was a monster in the middle of the avenue - then abrupt irritation.

"Just kill it already!" she snapped, clawing at her bag. The smirk playing on his lips lost its forced quality, now there was the petite fire he had been waiting to see. The confirmation needed - other than the onions she threw at his head. Silly girl. The burning in his chest ebbed subtly, its fade replaced by the other emotion.

Metatascia saw the ripple, its thoughts turning to escape rather than a feast.

"As you command." His jaw clenched, the cocky smirk vanishing for a split second, his body already in motion, casting the crushed bag of fragrant onion bulbs in her lap, his senses probing for the spark dormant within him - 'oi! Old man! Wake up!' - he silently yelled, a sensation like his fingers catching on string pulling it tight preceded the black miasmic flash of a sword. A dignified snort from within was the response of the Zanpaku-to. Kurosaki shunpo'd forward, slashing mightily at the front forelegs of the spider, blood splashed the air along with the beast's inhuman scream.

"Curse you-" it spat, scrabbling back on remaining legs. The severed appendages flopped in wet circles on the road, sticky white streams burbled within the maws of the Hollow. Kurosaki pitilessly vanished, reappearing behind it with a light tmp.

"Yeah, yeah. Curse me to Hell." He sneered softly, performing a swift set of sword strikes, at the very last he took the head, plunging his free hand into his coat pocket, withdrawing the last of the sutras old man Yama had prepared for him. This, he stamped down on the forehead of the beast, ramming his sword hilt to the paper. "Tell me how you like it." he grinned, an effusion of light flowing from his sword to the rest of the Hollow's body. "Hell that is!" A final flash and snarl...then silence. Kurosaki sighed, rising from his kneeling position. "Damned bastard got me anyway." Dull now, with resignation in the action, he dismissed the sword in a sprinkle of ash just as small pounding footsteps echoed up the deserted boulevard.

"How'd you- who-" the petite raven-haired girl fired off, then as her almost too large violet eyes drifted down to the singeing on his shirt, barked, "you're hurt!"

"I'm fine." He snapped, rolling his eyes discreetly. Part of him thrilled at the fact that Kuchiki-sama had noticed - worried - but another older part of him rejected the notion. Kuchiki-sama was just testing him...luring him into her silken threads of deceit. Kurosaki sighed, fending off the tiny hands that reached out though hesitantly, "for the last time, midget girl, I'm-" he broke off with the punch to the face that she dealt him.

Almost immediately, the girl jumped back, scowling, angry but almost smug at the same time. Kurosaki blinked then reached up, running his fingers over his bleeding nose as if to make sure it really wasn't broken. "You- you just punched me!"

She winced at his tone but pumped her small fists in front of her. "Yeah so what! Don't be calling me a midget girl when I'm just trying to help, baka!"

Watering amber eyes widened incredulously at her. "Trying to help?" he repeated to himself then roared back, "what the hell! I'm the one who saved your skinny ass and now you hit me just 'cause I said I was fine? What the fuck kind of logic is that?"

"Mine!" she snapped, getting up in his face. Eardrums still ringing from the petite one's voice, Kurosaki's expression ranged between out and out disbelief as her tiny hand latched onto the lapel of his jacket, hauling him with surprising strength back around and up the street.

"Where're we-" confused, he watched her snatch up his bag and swing it threateningly close to him like a whirligig, her violet eyes blazing, "shut up, baka!" then lower, biting her lip, eyes sliding around, "...can't take him to Orihime-chan's, Sora-san'll think this guy mugged me-"

He twitched, "um...I can hear you-"

She whacked him with the cans, the rattle and subsequent cry of his earning a few lights flickering on in a building across the street. The girl saw and immediately sped up, all but hauling him down a few more blocks to the edge of a sloping green turf.

"The park?" Kurosaki muttered, disbelievingly. Her eyes met his, the cans rising ominously. He swallowed any further comment and scowlingly followed her to the sand area of the children's playground. Once there, the girl dropped the bags on a nearby bench and spun around to face him, something in his face forcing her to drop the intense annoyed look she'd been giving him, her gaze falling to the side - refusing abjectly to meet his stare.

"Alright! We're here now-" she took a shallow breath in, his amber eyes noting the way her thin chest rose and fell with the motion. "I want some answers! Why are you following me?"

Ah. Playing at naivety, Kuchiki-sama?

That he could play at.

A tiny smirk, a tilt of half-lidded eyes sent her way. "What makes you say that? Isn't it the other way around?" Then as she bristled barely perceptible to his enhanced sight, his tone dropped lower, caressing. "Besides. Isn't that the worst thing you could've done...I mean...if I was following you..." her glance flickered to him, annoyance in every line of her pouting face. "You're alone with me now...in the darkness."

...

Rukia suppressed her shudder, her insides quivering from his last statement. Catching the smirk playing on his thin yet wide lips, she realized he'd been baiting her. Deliberately trying to get a rise out of her. Her ire flared again, "I'm not defenseless you know!"

His posture relaxed then unbelievably he laughed.

A cruel, cold sound of mirth.

She hated it immediately as much as her belief it was a false front for hiding his true motives. "Stop it..." Rukia mumbled, barely aware of gripping her fists at her sides. "Stop it. Stop laughing at me!" He jolted - that she was surprised by - then the fleeting shock was gone, masked behind a carefully placed smirk of faded amusement.

"Alright." He propped a hand on his hip, a casual gesture, "since you asked so nicely, I will."

Their eyes met silently, violet warring with amber.

She refused to look away first. "What's your name?"

He broke her gaze, striding past her, nearly brushing against her side. Rukia's insides coiled, tightening in revulsion. She pushed aside the feeling in favor of curiosity.

"Kurosaki Ichigo." He replied crisply, stepping a few feet away to the bench, the bags rustled as he bent a little, a metal chink following seconds later. Rukia bit nervously down on her lip, unsure of whether or not it had been a good idea after all to stand around with a stranger in a deserted park - surely Orihime-chan was worried that something had happened-

"Hey, you gonna introduce yourself or what?" He - no, Ichigo called, snapping open the pop tab to the can. Rukia watched him seat himself down, spread-legged as most males were, face half in shadow from the overhanging tree behind the bench. Coming to a decision, she strode forward calmly, almost haughtily, taking the sealed can from him.

"Kuchiki Rukia." she perched on the edge of the wooden slats, a secondary snap following. Ichigo wet his lips nervously - almost - the action seemed to belong to a much younger man. Indecision, she could tell, didn't run strong in him. Cocky assholeness yes. At that thought her mouth twitched into a smile which she hid behind the rim of the can.

"I don't know...how to say this." Ichigo began after a long pause, "I mean...I've rehearsed it in my head for many nights...just somehow never thought it'd actually get spoken...that I'd...find you." His sentence dropped off in a peculiar note, one that sent an involuntary shiver up her spine. Rukia kept her eyes fastened on the swingset, a side filmstrip in her mind running images of she and Orihime playing on it, Sora taking turns pushing them - Byakuya's stern voice chastising her lateness -

"There are many things in this world." He came out with suddenly, his expression twisting between annoyance and a scowl. "Beings, I guess you could say like humans. But alongside the humans...are ghosts. Spirits and such...not all are bad, some are even helpful. But there are some like Metatascia-"

"Like a fairytale. The monsters and the baddies. Was that the line of crap you were going to feed me?" She scoffed, he glowered.

"-not really. 'Cause a fairytale ain't real. Hollow spirits like Metatascia are. See, the majority of them reside in the underworld known to us as Hueco Mundo, 'cept certain gifted people who are spirits themselves take on human form - kind of like possess them and such. They take over the host's life and make it their own." He glimpsed her face - the disgust, softening the irony from his tone. "They're called the Ekusoshisuto. They're armed with spiritual powers called Gohou and weapons like kama or in the rare case," he couldn't resist smirking, "a katana like myself and basically we all go about slaying the Hollows-"

"That's all well and good." Rukia interrupted, skepticism oozing off of her like a frog. "But how do you expect me to believe you? This sounds like some kind of dream dreamed up on crack!" she jabbed her untouched tea can in his direction, sloshing sweet liquid everywhere. "Are you high or something!"

Again he resisted the urge to slap her pretty little face and use his powers to break her mind. It would've suited the powerless - memory less Kuchiki-sama just right for toying so easily with their duty, when he remembered every searing second of their seeming eternity together like it was yesterday. Deep inside, his old partner grumbled against the course presented by his seething mind, though in truth the old man would've been unable to stop him.

"No." He sipped at the overly sweet liquid, the aftertaste of bitterness soothing the beast raging behind his mild amber eyes. "I don't expect you to believe me." He shrugged luxuriantly, gaze tilting up to the sky. She tensed. "Hell! I wish myself it were all just a dream..." he quirked the hint of a smile. "Just a bad dream." One I can never end from.

Rukia tightened her grip on the can, clutching it as though it were her lifeline to sanity. "If you say that...then why do you still do it?" her voice ended tiny, innocent seeming violet orbs fixated on him, fascinated by him.

His amber eyes rolled from the heavens he'd never see the light of, pinning her to the core with veiled animosity. "'Cause..." he leaned forward, body scrunching, jacket rustling as he reached with his free hand across the distance to clasp her tiny chin, "you ordered me to."

Defiant to the last, her sparking violet eyes promised murder if he didn't release her soon.

Ichigo found he liked daring the powerless Kuchiki-sama, to do something.

Anything.

To cross that line...

"What the hell do you mean?" Rukia demanded, her chest suddenly tightening with those same feelings from before. Claustrophobia, pain, resentment flaring through her white-hotly. Yet through it all, she sat, motionless, her eyes snared by the sudden malicious light dancing in his strangely ancient eyes.

"You're..." he breathed, every sense aware of her delicious palpitating beats of heart. "...the reincarnation of our leader, my dear Kuchiki-sama."

-TBC-

AN: -.-; sorry for not updating. I did this chapter in hopes I could resurrect my enthusiasm for this plotline, so far I'm drifting - could be 'cause it's late. *note this is inspired by another great manga/anime which isn't well known* ^^ *must go to bed soon*

No flames please.

Reviews loved :)