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Despite her long existence, Rukia doesn’t have many regrets.
Could-haves and what-ifs don’t change the past, and despite what people think, the present isn’t anymore forgiving towards such indulgences.
In her experience, inertia is what gets people the most; an adherence to the status quo, such as it is. Once it starts — those fantasies where the past version of you knew what only experience could have given you — things can only unravel from there, even as the tapestry of the past refuses to. All the while, the present unspools at your feet.
Death is something Rukia is more than familiar with, and if she were fortunate enough to get to choose hers, it wouldn’t be a death like that — trapped in the lie of a life that was never going to be lived.
It’s why she didn’t think twice about throwing herself in front of Ichigo, the night they met.
A Hollow was always going to get her one day, and if it were that day, well. She could only hope the Hollow would go with her.
It hadn’t. She knew as soon as its teeth sliced into her ribcage like a knife even as it reared back and roared in agony. Ichigo — that fool was too stubborn, too demanding. Rukia remembers the blood in her mouth, the sharp pain lancing through her chest, the spots of unconsciousness flickering in her field of vision at her every blink as the shock crept in.
And she’d thought. Fine. There were worse ways to go.
Ichigo would kill the Hollow, or the Hollow would kill them both.
Give him her powers, and let the die be cast. Or surrender, and doom him anyway.
Those were her choices. Surviving past that night hadn’t come to mind, but when it did happen, she didn't regret making the choice to give Ichigo her powers.
Her execution would bring dishonour to the Kuchiki clan, but her adoption was already a smudge on their reputation as it was. Whatever reasons Byakuya-niisama had for taking her in, she couldn’t imagine the end result would be a surprise to the elders. After all, breaking the law would be something a street rat like her was bound to do eventually, she’d thought at the time, sardonic.
Urahara, with his suspiciously high-quality gigai, fully aware of the crime he was about to help her commit, had raised a toast to her bravery, “to choosing life, however long you can have it” and, delirious with the opportunity presented to her to live, she’d laughed.
Rukia isn’t laughing now.
“What the hell is this?”
Her vision feels like its receding around the edges, going dark. Not shock, it’s not physical. But something hurts. Something sharp. Something in her chest. She swallows, but there’s no blood. She’s not hurt. No one’s hurt. Ichigo isn’t in danger. He’s not going to be in danger. She won't let him be in danger.
"Ichigo," she warns.
Of course, he ignores her.
“Thank you,” he read the note he’d just brandished at her, disbelieving. “What are you…what are you thanking me for?” He’s a little out of breath. Like he ran to get to her. He would have had to. He was helping Tatsuki set up for sports day tomorrow, and has a paper due in a few days that he was helping Sado write between classes. He’s in charge of his sisters tonight because his dad was away for a conference, he had to pick up groceries, and swing by the elementary school to pick up the twins. Ichigo was busy. Too busy to have noticed her distraction in school. Too busy to have gone back to the house to check on her.
Rukia didn’t leave that message with the intention of it being found before she left. She didn’t intend for him to do anything about it when he did find it either.
“What are you doing?”
“Me? What are you doing?” The note is crumpled in his hand. He’s not angry, but he’s frustrated. He’s annoyed and annoying, and it reminds her of that night they met. Like he knows something is wrong. Like he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.
Likewise, there’s nothing she can say that can make this better so she doesn’t say anything.
Even though they haven't known each other long, Ichigo understands her silences enough to come to a conclusion. His annoyance, his frustration is sapped out of him, deflated, he states, “You — you’re leaving.”
She regrets that note. (No, she doesn’t. She needed him to know. She needed him to know she’s grateful for everything she’s been able to have here because of him.)
“Thank you is easier than goodbye.”
”Why,” the frustration is back, the brown of his eyes sparking gold in sudden fury, “why are you saying goodbye? Where are you — you don’t have to go. I didn’t —” The fury morphs, subsumed by guilt, “I didn’t fucking mean it, okay?”
That almost makes her laugh. She’d thought starting a fight with him would make him dismiss her strange behaviour; make it easier for her to leave, and for him to let her go. But in writing that note, she hadn’t managed it, and it turned out it didn’t work on him anyway.
“You’re such a pain,” it should have sounded biting, instead it sounds reluctantly fond. She shakes her head. “Ichigo, it’s not because of what you said.” Not that she even remembers what it was, in hindsight.
“Then why are you —”
“You know why.” He doesn’t, not really. She hadn’t been forthcoming of what the consequences were for giving him her powers, only that it would get her in trouble and that it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t happy about that admission then any more than he is now. “You need to let me go so I can deal with it,” the words are said calmly, rationally, though her own apprehension simmers beneath.
He hears it. Practically vibrating with self-righteousness, he snarls, “You shouldn’t be punished for saving me.”
“It’s how things are, Ichigo. Rules are rules.”
His exhale comes out in an angry hiss. Almost sarcastic, “I hear punishments tend to be more forgiving if you’re sorry. Are you? Sorry that you did it?”
At that, she scoffs. “Sorry for making you take my powers so you could save your family? Sorry for putting you in danger so you could do my job?” Saying it out loud is like throwing kindling to a flame. “Of course I’m sorry! You weren’t — this was never your burden to bear, Ichigo, and I should never have put you in this position, and I —” What if I’d killed the Hollow before it got that far? What if I’d been a better fighter, a better Shinigami? What if I never had to give you my powers at all?
“Rukia…”
“You need to let me go, Ichigo.”
He does not, in the end, let her go. And she regrets, not for the first time (or the last) that when it comes to Ichigo, even "I'll never forgive you" is easier than goodbye.