STOP ME WHEN YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH

Death, It Follows

"Yoruichi! Wait up!" Isshin demands.

"No way! We have to find him now!" She snaps.

"Rukia, help me out here," the Kurosaki head pleas.

"She's right. We have to find Ichigo."

After Rukia was freed from her god awful illusion, she immediately felt something was wrong. She could no longer sense Ichigo. She doesn't know what happened from the time Grimmjow cornered her to the time she was freed, but it couldn't have been good.

Kisuke managed to talk down the Gotei 13 long enough for Renji to come around with Kyōka Suigetsu. Once everyone was out of the illusion, they fixed ties with the Arrancar. They had abandoned Aizen to help Ichigo stop what the war could've become. That was plenty of reason to not only spare them, but thank them.

While Rukia is glad the fighting stopped, Tousen in custody, and her friends alive, there is no trace of Ichigo. Or Aizen, for that matter. It leaves her feeling both nervous and worried. What should she do?

"Are you Kurosaki-sama's girl?"

Yoruichi, Isshin, and Rukia all stop in their tracks. There is an Arrancar littered in bandages standing alone in the rubble.

"Who are you?" Rukia demands.

"You are her," the Arrancar nods. "My name is Mañana Dorado. I was the one ordered to take you to Lieutenant Abarai."

"Ordered by who? What are you talking about?"

"Kurosaki-sama knocked you unconscious when you were under Aizen's illusion. His orders were to have the illusion removed."

"You saw Ichigo? When? How long ago was this?" She takes a hopeful step forward.

"It was hours ago, but I can take you where I last saw him."

"Please!" Rukia begs.

"Follow me."

The shunpo there is horrible. Rukia can't stop thinking. She wants to so bad, but she can't. Where is Ichigo? What happened to him? Will she ever get to tell him, or is it too late? Tears well in her eyes from all the "what ifs."

What they find leaves Rukia feeling empty.

Aizen lays face down in a puddle of - what is safe to assume - his own blood. He's dead.

Several meters away from him is a second body. He lays there, body cold and unmoving. His unseeing eyes look to the sky. There is no blood. There are no signs of suffering. His face only betrays peace despite the large hole in his chest. It's too big to be a Hollow hole. That can only mean something large went through him.

She can't hear anything. There is only a ringing to her ears as she stumbles past a collapsed Isshin and a weeping Yoruichi. She can't hear the crunch of her steps through the dirt, ash, and blood on the ground. She can't hear the slam of her knees as she crashes to the ground. She can't hear the scream that tears though her throat.

Rukia can feel all of it though. The clumps of ash stuck to her tabi boots, the ache of her knees, and the raw of her throat. She can feel hot tears stream down her face and the cool of his broken chest plate as she drapes herself over him.

Ichigo is dead.

Mañana, the last Arrancar to see Ichigo alive, offers to carry his body for Rukia.

"He was a brilliant leader and a loyal friend to us all. He deserves a burial," Mañana says softly.

Rukia closes his eyes and kisses his cheek. "You weren't supposed to die," she whispers before getting up.

Mañana does as she said and carries Ichigo's body back to the established camp. Rukia hugs Zangetsu to her chest as she follows Mañana closely. Isshin and Yoruichi trail after her, the two of them comforting each other.