like the light was all i had, i struck the book with my last match

[unburden]

Weeks have passed since Rukia last spent any meaningful amount of time around Urahara Kisuke. They see each other almost every day with Rukia being a regular employee at the café, but helping with the cats is a far cry from the type of counsel that Rukia and Urahara usually provide one another. The reason for Rukia pulling back is simple. However much she has learned to expect Urahara to extend his influence wherever possible — provided it's an area of interest — being fully cognizant of how little control she has leaves her feeling uneasy. Angry, as well.

And sometimes, deeply lonely.

But Dean Winchester isn't just any subject. He is, in his own way, a deeply trusted partner whose interests she wishes to protect. And if there's anything that Urahara doesn't have as much patience for, it's teaching the regular discipline and foundational work that every shinigami needs to learn. So she sends Dean an invitation to join her for training one day, curious to see how far he's come, and wanting to make sure the new power he wields is enough to protect the additional attention he's sure to attract.

She settles on a meeting place far into the forest, where she practices her aim by slicing the falling leaves neatly in two with her sword.

Comments

[unburden]

"Sleeve of white snow. That's what her name means," Rukia says with a soft smile. Her countenance always changes slightly once her zanpakutou is released, almost though as if compelled to calm by the cold. The sword won't be too happy with her for having released under such casual pretenses, but Rukia's pretty sure she can bring some reason to Sode no Shirayuki. Instruction can be just as important as combat.

"Her abilities are all temperature-based. Three versions of shikai, the initial release, and one version of bankai, her final release. In the first dance, if I draw a circle with Sode no Shirayuki, everything within that circle is frozen, from the ground and stretching up to the sky. The second dance once again requires a circle, but I stab four corners within the circle, causing an avalanche of cold air to spread and freeze everything in its path. And her third dance allows me to alter the very blade by freezing the water in the air, thereby letting me hit opponents who are far away," Rukia adds, letting the tip of her blade drop near the ground, where it freezes a small circle of grass. "In her final release, she freezes everything around her, including myself. Right now, I have power enough to go about a block's radius, and my own temperature can be dropped to absolute zero for a brief amount of time. But that attack can easily go wrong. Any rash action, and your body splinters."

Rukia raises her sleeve slightly, showing a gash that's mostly healed, extending from wrist to elbow. Just from yesterday.

She glances up with a small smile. "Some of my friends have always said I can be very cold when I deem it appropriate. That might explain the sword I've been given."

[always_enduphere]

Dean smiles faintly. "I haven't seen you like that, yet," he says, but it's true that he has yet to see her tactics in battle. That first hollow years ago is the only real fight they've ever shared, and Dean had known next to nothing of her world, then.

He drops his gaze to study the long gash streaking up her arm. He'd fallen into a frozen lake when he was young - Dean doesn't need to be told how deadly the cold can be, but still..."I never thought of it as a weapon before. How long did it take to learn her name?"

[unburden]

"I'm sure you'll see me like that in time," Rukia replies with a faint smile, lowering her sleeve again. The wound will likely be healed before another day passes, but she isn't rushing it. It's a sobering reminder of the care that she needs to exercise in everything that she does.

Especially now that she's trying to help another shinigami find his bearings.

"It took years for Sode no Shirayuki to tell me her name. When I entered the Academy, it was as a young girl from a poverty-stricken district in Soul Society. I wasn't well-educated, I wasn't very worldly in the ways that my peers were," she adds, shrugging with a slight shake of her head. "It made confidence a bit harder to build, and I think she could sense that. A zanpakutou usually doesn't reach out with its name until it seems its bearer ready. I needed to have a better sense of self and confidence in what I knew before I could take that to battle."