The first of many chapters
Did Livejournal change their system on me or has it just been a really long time since I actually bothered to post anything? Well, whatever the answer may be, I'm back and that only means I have more fanfiction. This story took me a fair amount of time to write (it's as long as a novella) and my goal is to now start posting a chapter once a week. The fic is practically finished, but spending some time to revise is good, yes? But I have to start with the beginning and here it is.
Title: Long Way to Goodbye
Rating: The much beloved T, where characters may swear and possess sexuality, but not so much that I will be banned for posting this.
Summary: Rukia and Ichigo disappeared and, although she tries, Karin has no idea what happened to them. Did Ichigo abandon everyone or did he and Rukia die?
Series: Bleach
Genre: I wouldn't peg any single genre on this. It has a mix of mystery, drama, comedy and (very) minor romance.
Note: Another story that took a few strange turns before it became what it is now. But I think it turned out all right. The title of this story comes from Chapter 159 of Bleach, “The Long Way to Say Goodbye,” and that’s about all the connection this fic has to that specific chapter.
For people that care about pairings, I’ll mention that Orihime’s feelings for Ichigo are presented as an unhealthy thing for in this fic. That’s all the warning I’ll give (and it’s about the only warning to give, for that matter).
A shout out to Laurie Bunter again. Even if you didn't do much, you still did a lot without really trying.
Lastly, I’ll apologize for the prologue being essentially the same as the summary. It’s only there to briefly explain the setting so people have a general idea of when my story is set.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
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The Long Way to Goodbye
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Prologue
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Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki disappeared one summer…that was all Karin Kurosaki knew, all she was told about the fate of her brother. His other friends came back, but decided not to explain two missing Shinigami. No one would tell her why they had even left, much less why her brother didn’t come back. Did Ichigo abandon his home to live with Rukia? Were they dead? There was nothing to give Karin so much as a hint.
Time passed and she wondered if she would ever learn what happened. It never came to her that she might not want to know the full truth.
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I
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The worst part wasn’t that Ichigo was gone, but that Karin had to put up with the fake in his absence. She couldn’t wait to say goodbye to his ugly face.
The fake Ichigo disgusted Karin, to put it mildly. “Oh, oh, oi, beef sukiyaki!” he slobbered out his words during supper. He only stopped stuffing his mouth with food to drool over his plate. “Oi, Yuzu-chan, you’re the best! Gimme, gimme, please!”
Not even waiting for Yuzu to pass him the food, the fake snatched half of Yuzu’s work (far more than a fair share) and scarfed it down. Looking surprised, Yuzu watched him in bewildered silence, although she could still muster an uneasy smile. Dad, in the meantime, was eating nearly as fast as their false family member, but Dad was nowhere near as loud or obnoxious as was his norm-Karin never imagined she would miss the days when he regularly decked Ichigo during dinner, and yet she did. Silently, she picked away at her food, which didn’t interest her (not to suggest it wasn’t good; it was great, really). Having an appetite just wasn’t easy with a pig sitting across from her.
Oh, that person may have looked exactly like Ichigo, but he was not Ichigo. All of his scowls looked forced, his eyes trailed after any women with large breasts (so unlike Ichigo!), he had forgot Karin and Yuzu’s birthday, he forgot his own birthday last July, and sometimes he simply could not properly answer questions about the past. Karin had long since reached the simple conclusion; this wasn’t her brother.
Just listen to him:
“Ah, takoyaki! Heaven, I’m in heaven! Yuzu-chan, you’re a sweet angel-no, a goddess!-in the flesh!” Yeah, the fake worshipped Karin’s poor, defenseless sister.
Yuzu managed a small laugh, unsure how to accept this behavior. Karin knew how to accept it: with an irritated groan.
“Yuzu, salt please,” Dad asked a bit too kindly, if you asked Karin. “Karin, eat.” Karin scowled and took a grudging bite. That it was delicious was small consolation. “You”-he addressed the fake (whom he never called Ichigo, Karin noticed)-“calm down. This isn’t the first time you’ve eaten here; you don’t need to make a mess of those clothes. Yuzu’s going to be cleaning that shirt.”
“Huh?” Yuzu squeaked. “No, Daddy, it’s fine! I’m happy he likes it. Don’t be mean to him!”
Dad looked hurt. “But Yuzu-chan…!”
Karin groaned again. Suppertime was absolutely unbearable these days. This stranger masquerading as Ichigo…Yuzu confused…Dad acting too much like a normal, authoritative dad…it all made Karin want to scream, “He’s not Ichigo! Why are we eating with whoever this is?! Dad, you seem to know this isn’t my brother, but you don’t do anything! Why?! Why! Where is he, really?”! Not only that but, “Where’s Rukia?!” The woman had only lived in the Kurosaki residence for a short time, but to disappear so suddenly without saying anything? Don’t any of you think this is more than a little weird?
Frustrated though she was, Karin could not voice any of the questions burning her insides (hence the supper being unbearable). She’d tried explaining her suspicions to Yuzu and Dad too many times to no avail-they refused to reach her own conclusion. Dad rejected her conspiracy theories immediately (despite Dad’s suspicious behavior around the fake), while Yuzu would indulge in Karin’s ideas until Karin hit the brick wall she could never get past. If this person was not Ichigo, then who was he? How could he look and smell just like him?
And Karin had no answer for that.
The fake Ichigo devoured plate after plate. “Oh, yomch, nom nom. Dis’ is ga real good, bah rahah gurgle snort.” Did he ever bother to chew? “More, please!”
No answer other than this thing was too stupid for him to be Ichigo.
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The never-ending headache continued well into Karin’s walk to school the next day (with Yuzu in tow). The big problem’s that I got no idea how I can prove that guy isn’t really my brother. Two whole years had passed and she was no closer to discovering the answer than ever. Where to begin?
And if Ichigo’s inexplicable body switching act wasn’t enough of a migraine, there was Rukia’s disappearance, too. And when Karin said disappearance, she meant disappearance. It was bad enough that Rukia was gone, but only her family and Ichigo’s friends seemed to remember Rukia had existed. Everyone else had no recollection of a short, dark-haired woman with attitude. For an aspiring junior detective, vanishing in body and memory made quite the advanced mystery. Was it even possible to begin looking for clues? Sheesh!
Karin sighed. This was far too much to take.
“Are you worried about that English test?” ventured Yuzu out of concern. “You’re always sighing and groaning and you don’t seem to ever do homework…”
Karin’s fraternal twin looked pretty worried and Karin nearly slapped herself on the head. “Oh, I’m not fretting over that dumb exam,” Karin softened, chuckling a little. Who cares about foreign languages, really? Goofy languages were nothing when she had to fix the family. In any case, Karin reminded herself not to moan and bitch around town-it just wasn’t like her.
Yuzu didn’t seem all that convinced about Karin’s academic life. “Really?” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “This isn’t about Ichi-nii again, is it? He’s been weird, I admit, but he is at that age, you know, when boys, uh, change.” Yuzu blushed for a second but was soon stern once more. “But, really, I’m sure he’s not a completely different person, Karin.”
He is a completely different person! “No, it’s just-wait, what was that sound?” Karin paused in mid-sentence and her eyes darted all over the place.
Yuzu looked around, askance. The houses looked normal to her. A couple of other students were also walking to school. Some people had their sprinklers on. It appeared to be a normal, sunny, bright morning, even if it was a little too warm for spring.
Then, unmistakably, the sounds of a twig snapping and foliage moving could be heard.
“There! Over there!” Karin pointed dramatically at a hedge right beside Yuzu.
In response, something orange popped out and quickly fell back down. “Oww, ouch, careful…” the hedge grumbled in a low voice, sounding uncannily like a teenage boy.
“Aha!” exclaimed Karin and she jumped over the hedge in triumph. “It’s you two again!”
Two high school students were crouching on the other side of the hedge. Two very familiar high school students, Karin might add. Having been caught, the boy with lanky black hair stood to his full (and quite tall) height and nonchalantly adjusted his glasses, while the orange-haired girl rose with flushed cheeks, looking like an abashed schoolgirl.
Karin opened her mouth to rain hell down on them, but the boy talked over her, pretending she wasn’t even there.
“Inoue,” the teenage boy turned to his partner in crime, “I’ve told you before that your hair stands out. Be careful.”
“But I had to peek over the hedge so I could see them,” The girl showed some shame, but defended herself, nonetheless. “You have to keep quiet, though. She heard you say ‘ouch’ and that gave us away!”
“Huh? I could not help myself, as you had fallen on me. Next time, aim to land on the grass, not on my chest.”
Stunned and with mouths agape, Karin and Yuzu listened to this bizarre argument between Orihime Inoue and Uryuu Ishida.
The ridiculous bickering continued until Karin lost her cool a second time and burst out.
“Would you two stop arguing!” she yelled in annoyance. In a flash, the pair’s lips zipped shut-most satisfactory. Karin jabbed at Orihime (since Ishida was much bigger than Karin) with a finger. “You two were spying on us again!”
“N-no, we weren’t!” Orihime hastily denied the accusation.
“Yes, you were!” Karin pressed on. “Right, Yuzu?” Yuzu nodded, taking a step away from the strange, older students.
Orihime shook her head unconvincingly. “We weren’t! We were…were…we were what, Ishida-kun?”
Ishida’s glasses flashed and he suddenly held a machete-sized knife (or sword, whatever). “We were trimming this hedge, Inoue-san,” he answered and sliced away a piece of the bush for good measure.
“Right. Trimming the hedge!”
Karin threw up her hands. “How is that…?” Okay, she gave up on making them confess to spying on them. Instead, she stopped poking Orihime so she could put her hands on her hips and strike a menacing pose. “Hey, creeps, what happened to my brother two years ago?” she rounded on them for the umpteenth time.
“Karin!” Yuzu scolded her, looking aghast. Strange or not, Orihime and Ishida were senior students and should be shown some respect.
The pair went on the defensive immediately:
“What do you mean?” Orihime replied far too innocently (complete with averted eyes and a strained voice). “We see him at class every day. R-right, Ishida-kun?”
“Yes, Inoue-san,” Ishida played his part in their double-act flawlessly. Too flawlessly.
Karin growled in frustration. “You two still won’t tell us?” (“Don’t include me in this!” Yuzu interjected from a safe distance). “What about Rukia, then? If she went back home, like you two claim, why would she do that without telling anyone in my family, or without ever phoning us or writing to us? Hmm?”
The other two went quiet and huddled together, and began whispering to one another. Orihime nodded her head fervently but Ishida shook his even more forcefully. Very suspicious.
They broke up and all Orihime had to say after the quiet debate was, “Well…”
Karin smirked. I’ve got you two this time-time to use my trump card. Try to explain your way out of this one. “Because she’s a Shinigami, right? Like Ichigo,” she added knowingly.
You don’t go around fighting Hollows on a regular basis or see ghosts your whole life without knowing what a Shinigami is. Karin had pegged Rukia for one a long time ago, but she had waited for ages to use this knowledge against the Stalk Squad (aka Ishida and Orihime).
In response, the Stalk Squad gave each other significant looks and went into another huddle. They appeared to disagree even more this time, although Karin couldn’t catch a single word. When they came out, it was Ishida who spoke immediately.
“Yes, she is a Shinigami,” Ishida admitted, ignoring Orihime’s accusatory frown. “She…went back to Soul Society, where the Shinigami live.”
On the opposite side of the hedge, Yuzu was confused by the discussion. “Err, what’s a Shinigami?”
But Karin was too busy scrutinizing Ishida to explain things to her sister. “Then why didn’t she tell us? Or write?”
Orihime was still glowering at Ishida, but he replied with a blank face, “She couldn’t. Mail doesn’t get through from there.”
Abruptly, Yuzu gasped and began tugging on Karin’s arm. “Karin, Karin…”
Karin was lost in thought and paid no attention to the tugs on her arm. I guess a Shinigami shouldn’t need to write letters to girls in Karakura. Still…this doesn’t add up somehow. Hmph! She thought her trump card would get some real answers from those two, but she should have known better. If only there was someone else she could ask, another one of Ichigo’s friends who might know…
“Hey, you two,” she addressed Ishida and Orihime (the latter was sweating on pins and needles, by this point), and continued ignoring Yuzu’s tugs on her arm, “what’s Chad been up to? I know he’s been going to his classes because I’ve seen him a couple of times but I can’t get him to talk with me.”
For once, Ishida and Orihime looked truly bewildered.
“Karin, Karin,” Yuzu tried to gain her sister’s attention again.
Orihime shrugged. “I would like to know what Sado-san’s been doing, too, but I haven’t had a chance to ask him, either. He’s been going somewhere after school but will not tell us about it.”
Karin’s shoulders slumped. “I see. Well, I still want to know -”
“KARIN!” Yuzu screamed at her, and Karin jumped. Yuzu was not often furious so it was a strange spectacle to behold; her pink face and puffed-up cheeks were oddly frightening.
“What?” said Karin, a touch apprehensive.
“We are late for class! We need to go! We have an exam, remember? I’ve been trying to tell you this for a minute now!”
“I’m not done with you, two…!” Karin hollered at Ishida and Orihime, but she could not resist being dragged away by an angry sister.
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Giving her lessons their duly attention that day, however, was impossible for Karin Kurosaki. She was a bright girl, don’t doubt it, but her mind wasn’t at its sharpest during the English test. Karin couldn’t help but be distracted; she kept wondering about her brother, Rukia, the oddities known as Ishida and Orihime, and Chad. Classes whizzed by in a flash and Karin didn’t learn a thing from her teachers. Nor were her theories about Ichigo and his friends any good.
“Come on, let’s go home,” Yuzu urged her with a smile. At least Karin’s sister had already forgiven Karin for her morning tardiness.
Their walk home was shaping up to be less eventful than the morning’s shenanigans when Karin’s nose twitched and her body tensed.
Nearby, a dangerous spirit had entered this world.
“Yuzu, go on ahead! I forgot, I was going to, uh, one of my friend’s houses today.”
“What?”
But Karin had already run off and soon left Yuzu far behind. She wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like this. With all the powerful people hanging out in Karakura, it wasn’t all that often she got to take on a Hollow.
And, amazingly, she soon found herself alone with one of the masked monsters in the middle of the street. The sun above was cooking, unusual for late spring, and the glare from the Hollow’s mask stung her eyes; Karin smiled brashly, feeling a little perspiration form on her temple. Good, she was all warmed up.
The Hollow shrieked. Karin flexed her fingers and cracked her knuckles.
About twenty seconds, though, she was already dusting off her hands as the spirit left this world.…Of course, it has to turn out to be a weak Hollow, Karin thought after a quick and painless annihilation of said Hollow. Painless for her, at least. That must be why no one else took care of it first-too weak…Then again, I have gotten a lot stronger since winter. She smiled wryly at the thought.
Sure, this Hollow was impressively strong compared to the trash that used to haunt the town before Ichigo and Rukia left, but the recent tormented souls thrashing about were made from a higher cut. It made for good training, but their growth could be bothersome. Oh well! It made her feel better to beat the hell of something, anyways!
Then, Karin’s good spirits were cut down when she felt two strong presences in the near vicinity. Them again?! The Stalk Squad: Ishida and Orihime. Seemed like they were always around her.
“Hey, you two!” she called out loudly to make sure they heard. “I know you’re out there! I already told you to stop following me!”
Immediately, Karin lost track of their reiatsu. Either they fled or hid their spiritual pressure. Probably the latter. Tch. Obviously, they didn’t want yet another confrontation with the badass Karin Kurosaki. Leave it to them to spoil a good workout session. Had Ishida and Orihime dedicated their free time to pestering Karin or something? Must be real fun for them, she was sure.
Karin was seething so vehemently, she almost failed to sense a new, much stronger and unfamiliar reiatsu; it was a few blocks away. Instantly, curiosity tempered Karin’s anger. She was certain she’d never felt this energy since she’d gained the ability to discern spiritual pressure last summer.
Could it be…? Hope made her heart race, and Karin used her speedy legs to dash to the stranger’s location. She mustn’t set her hopes too high.
Could it be Ichigo or Rukia? The…the spiritual thread…it’s red! A Shinigami! Exhilaration shortened the time of her pursuit. She ran around a street corner and saw a flurry of black robes run into an alleyway. And Karin saw some hair that was definitely not black.
“Ichigo?”
Karin ran to the back alley, but the Shinigami and the reiatsu had vanished by then. Her heart sank, against her will.
Her mind raced. This was by far the best evidence she’d seen in two years, believe it or not. Had that been Ichigo? She wasn’t sure if she had seen orange or blonde hair (it might not be either, however). Was it Ichigo?! She didn’t get the best look at the man (it was a man!), so she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. But what if it was Ichigo? She was disappointed she hadn’t cornered this man, but this was a good sign-it had to be!
Only, if it was Ichigo, why would he have run away from her? Furthermore, this did not prove that the fake Ichigo was a fake Ichigo. Karin needed more information. Grr.
Oh, where the hell was Chad? Karin knew that she would find answers as soon as she cornered him (or, rather, that she could bully answers out of him), and then she could rectify things at home. As soon as she found Chad…bah, he was useless, too, at the moment! So was her brother for sticking her with a stupid fake!
But Karin couldn’t go home in a huff, no matter how irritating Chad and her brother could be. At the very least, she had somewhere to start from now. Just follow the Shinigami. Nobody could hide things from Karin forever.