Afire Love (Bleach: Ichiruki)

XXXV

Ichigo Kurosaki

I shot up, prying my eyes open, as freezing cold water dripped from my face. Renji stood to my side with an empty bucket in his hand as he gave me a blank expression.

"Renji? What the hell?!" I snapped, pulling my dripping hair back from my face.

"You were out for too long. I was getting bored."

"You didn't have to dump water on my face idiot!"

Renji narrowed his eyes at me, lifting the bucket to hit me across the head as I pushed myself up, ready to punch him in the face.

But our heads snapped to the side when the sound of a door slid open.

Yoruichi stood there, smirking at the both of us as she crossed her arms.

"Yoruichi?"

"What the hell do you think you two are doing?"

Renji and I exchanged glances as he held the bucket above my head, while I was still gripping his shirt to punch him.

We instantly released our forms as I sat back down on the bed, Renji chucking the bucket to the other side of the room.

"Kurosaki!" Inoue and Chad appeared at the doorway behind Yoruichi, who still stood there smirking at us.

"Inoue! Chad!" I exclaimed, my eyes widening.

Inoue rushed into the room past Yoruichi, running to me and throwing her arms around me, ignoring the fact that I was soaked.

"I'm so glad you're awake!"

I wrapped my arm around her, patting her back before pulling away.

"Thanks, Inoue."

I turned my head, greeting Chad as he stood next to Inoue.

"What happened?" I asked, my memory foggy.

"Well, you were out for 24 hours.." Inoue said.

Renji, surprisingly, patted my shoulder.

"And Rukia's back. Good job."

My eyes widened.

Rukia. I forgot.

How could I forget bringing back that little midget?

Yet again, I wasn't there when she woke up.

I moved to stand up, wanting to see her. But Chad pushed me back down.

"Chad?"

"You can't go yet, Ichigo." Yoruichi said from behind them. Inoue and Chad cleared a way for her to stand in front of me.

I frowned.

She rolled her eyes.

"You have missed a lot in the past 24 hours." Yoruichi's expression was upset as she looked at me hard.

"What?"

She sighed, massaging her forehead.

"When you restored Rukia's soul back into her body, the part of Asami's soul that was in Rukia moved back into her body."

"That's good, right?" I asked, still not getting the point Yoruichi was trying to get at.

She ignored me. "That triggered off a series of events. Pieces of her soul that she had distributed moved back into her own body, resulting in the death of those shinigami and arrancar."

My eyes widened.

"All of them?"

"Just the ones that were supposed to die."